Wasn't the 100 tampons thing because they didn't know how weightlessness would affect bleeding?
this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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That and NASA is a very safety conscious organization. So they want to overestimate everything and include way more than they need. So when she said a couple per day you can round that to 5 for safety, then considering it's a 6 day mission they want to include triple the amount of needed supplies which means 18 days worth. 18*5=90 which is pretty close to 100 so let's round up again. Plus tampons are a useful first aid tool, especially in zero gravity. You shove some into an open wound and it'll prevent blood from spilling all over the very sensitive equipment. Does a woman need 100 tampons for 6 days? Of course not, but she wasn't going to spend a week in the mountains, she was going to space, so the safety precautions were much more stringent
It's also a weight thing. Tampons are pretty light, it's like one hundred per pound, so they probably said "we can budget x pounds for this" and didn't think much about the reasoning behind why they're sending several hundred tampons into space, but we're entirely focused on how.
Less than that I think, and I’d suspect NASA would do load calculations in metric.
According to this reputable (first result on Google) High School Science Fair Project ^PDF, the average tampon is about 1g. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just budgeted 100g for it.
There's also the point that they don't go bad. It might be easier to send a load up now, that try and fit enough for each female astronaut into every flight.
Just a word of advice, the tampon in a wound thing, as much as the Russian military might advise it, is not good medical technique. Do not use a tampon to plug a wound. It'll likely do more harm than good. Just apply pressure to it from the outside with your hand if you have literally no other option.
Agree in general. The problem would be debris trapping, fluid compartmenting, sterility, etc.
But if you need a dressing and that's all you have, unpacking them into gauze pad like things would be great.
All of this assuming you are literally flying 7.5km/s towards a trauma center
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I learned recently that in space you might not need to piss as the piss floats in your bladder.
normally you get 3/4s full and really need a slash, but in space it can fill up totally without you feeling anything and then just bust out your urethra without notice.
honestly, it was probably a fair point.
Your bladder changes volume to hold urine; there's no floating, just pressure. Gravity affects that pressure though.
NASA also does everything they can to save weight though.
On later Apollo missions, they cut the number of band-aids in the lunar lander's first aid kit from 6 to 12 to save weight.
Doubled the bandaids to save weight. I can see why the tampon thing was a struggle for them.
They're to replace the tampons
they cut the number of band-aids in the lunar lander's first aid kit from 6 to 12 to save weight.
I see here is the problem. The guy doesn't know how to reduce weight, you don't add more stuff to cut on weight. That explains the extra tampons.
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Not that I disagree that NASA isn't safety conscious, but I've recently watched a video about the challenge disaster which seemingly could easily have been avoided if they had listened to the weather concerns or redesigned their solid boosters after issues were observed in the first place. I guess in that case they just got too complacent.
That decision was made on a different level, though, and was largely political.
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NASA is obsessed with redundancy, especially when the weight allowance lets them run away with it.
Add that to the fact that most of the engineers were men, and had literally no clue about how many tampons are needed for a normal woman on earth, and you end up with 100 being sent up for a two-week mission.
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Do people really use the term "hosting" when saying you're having someone over for the weekend? Because I'm getting sex worker vibes otherwise.
Sure. In my mind, hosting is either for larger get-together that takes organizing and preparation or if someone is traveling to the area to stay with you for a few days.
Hosting generally carries the weight of planning, organization and preparation that probably doesn’t go into just having someone over to hang out.
Depends how grown-up we're trying to feel
Been using that forever, even in the internet. Ever heard of LAN hosting?
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I don't hear it often, but being a host to people in your house is a normal thing.
I feel like we're missing an important piece of the puzzle: are they an alcoholic?
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Fuck it's actually real. Nasa engineers really suggested 100 tampons for 6 days
https://www.poynter.org/tfcn/2021/did-nasa-send-a-woman-to-space-with-100-tampons/
Yup.
Quick math and being paranoid about redundancy:
A typical period lasts 3-5 days, with 7 being the high end. Round to 10.
Heavy flow might require a change every 4 hours, or 6 a day. 12 a day is in the realm of reality, albeit medically concerning.
Bring extra in case return has to be delayed for whatever reason.
They're extremely light and small, so a conservative weight allowance holds a lot of them. About 1g each, or 100 per 4oz.
So some quick math and padding your numbers to account for the unknown gets you 100, which considering they then asked isn't an unreasonable way to start.
I tried too long to figure out what this has to do with the Lemmy app.
*lemme
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