Space And The Human Condition
Space And The Human Condition
Contents
Durability By Design
So Many Systems
The Sweet Spot
Our Outer Limits
Diminishing Returns
Are We Against The Wall?
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When it comes to space, these human forms of ours aren’t really designed for it. An understatement, to be sure.
Yet, in some ways our bodies are incredibly durable.
Durability By Design
As living organisms we’re resilient, dynamic. We self-repair—a thing that sets us apart from our machine friends. Machines don’t wear out unless you use them. They don’t get better unless you fix them.
Bodies, on the other hand, require you to use them.
To break them down in order for them to build back stronger.
When it comes to that cycle we tend to think only in musculoskeletal terms (how much ya bench?!), but as living organisms all our body systems operate this way.
And we’ve got quite a few.
So Many Systems
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty complicated.
Each of us is walking around with a:
Nervous system
Digestive system
Musculoskeletal system
Circulatory system
Endocrine system
Immune system
Respiratory system
Integumentary system (our skin)
Reproductive system
All get stronger through use.
(Yes, jokes about the reproductive system getting stronger with use are not lost on us.)
The cycle is simple:
We challenge our bodies, then we feed and rest them (well enough, hopefully), after which they, in turn, respond by toughening up for the next time they’re challenged.
Call it the Tiger Cycle:
Chase/Kill
Eat
Sleep
You can fiddle that around any way you like, but the sequence is fundamental to the way our bodies work.
We exert effort, we replenish, we rest.
What’s more, we can enhance those natural breakdown/rebuild cycles. Supplements help with muscle growth, varied diets challenge and strengthen our digestion, vaccines aid the immune system, stimulants improve mental acuity, exercises can be used to train our brains, etc.
How far can we take it?
The Sweet Spot
There’s a bell curve of sorts. A graph that defines the body’s optimum range of use. With the muscles, for example, at one end of the curve you could sit on the couch and do nothing, get weak like a veal calf, get vulnerable and die.
On the other end you could run continuously until you die.
Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot.
Exercise is critical, but it needs to be done right. When it comes to the internal organs, the same is true. At one end of the curve, if you don’t drink enough water you expire. At the other end, chug a few gallons in one sitting and you’re probably also finished.
Immune system, same thing.
Wash your hands too much, over-sanitize, avoid all contact with dog kisses, germs and yucky dirt and the next big bug that comes along may just kill you. On the other hand, maybe washing your hands once in a while helps keep the balance?
There are many such examples.
Point is, with the proper awareness—and challenge—we can squeeze quite a bit of performance out of these otherwise weak pieces of meat.
What are the limits of the human body?
Our Outer Limits
No one body can achieve them all. Each standout forfeits abilities in other areas, to a greater or lesser degree. The guy who deadlifts a thousand pounds probably can’t run a 9-second hundred-meter dash.
Nor can he, or the sprinter, execute a Front Swing Triple Lindy with Half Turn Dismount on the uneven bars. (We made those moves up, we think, but they sound pretty difficult.)
Form follows function; specialization is what gives us humans the advantage. One reason we can go further in any direction as a species is due to our ability to train and develop expertise.
If we all knew the same information, if we could all do more or less the same things, we’d be closer to ants.
Diversity is key.
Records give us an indication of what can be achieved. They put a marker post on the limits of the human form.
Perhaps most importantly, they let us know just how awesome we can be when we apply ourselves to a goal.
A Few For The Books
To give an idea of ways we’ve pushed those boundaries, here are a few examples of what the human body can do. Note, the ones chosen here are select areas of human achievement, completely random.
Enjoy.
Breath Holding
Get this. The record is 11:35. Over eleven minutes. Crazy? No doubt. Please don’t try that at home. Or at all.
Bringing things a little more down to earth, Navy SEALs train to hold their breath underwater for two to three minutes or more. Breath-holding drills are typically used to condition and build confidence for high surf conditions at night.
We’ve probably all seen the 6 and 7 minute examples set by a few Hollywood stars while filming underwater scenes.
These achievements are a great example of how our physical limits are often beyond what we imagine.
Highest Vertical Leap
47.1”
For the average person, it’s more like about 25 inches without training.
How high could that average person leap on other worlds?
Venus 27 inches
Mars 5 feet
The moon 12 feet
Titan 14 feet
Pluto 30 feet
Deadlift
This one went into overdrive amongst lifters when Eddie Hall decided to round off to the nearest hundred.
The record had been inching up incrementally, and was sitting at 465 kgs (1025 lbs), when, for giggles, Eddie threw on an even 500 kgs and ... actually lifted it.
Not to be outdone, a few years later Hafthor Bjornsson did 501 (1104 lbs). Then, of course, someone else did one kg more—502—and now we’re back to incremental gains.
But that’s typical for competition.
The coolest thing about this is that it’s a perfect example of how we can blow past the bleeding edge when we decide—with conviction—to do so.
Once someone sets their mind to doing a thing, then does it, the rest of us quickly follow.
All we need is that first pioneer.
Highest Human Speed
27.78 mph
(We’re reminded of all those dramatic movie scenes with an action star leading a lengthy, harrowing chase down an alley, being pursued by a car. In truth that chase would never last more than seconds, even if the car started from a complete stand-still. Next time you’re driving through your neighborhood, note how slow 20 mph actually is, and how quickly and unexpectedly you reach it.)
Sharpest Human Vision
This may not be one you can totally train and have control over, but it gives you an idea of what we might be capable of. An Aborigine man holds the record, clocking in with a 20/5.
What that means is that from 20 feet he can perceive details that an average person with 20/20 vision can only see from 5 feet away.
And yes, we know you’re wondering: That measurement does in fact compare to the natural eyesight of eagles.
IQ
A score above 130 indicates exceptional intelligence. Anything higher than 160 makes you a genius.
Heard of Marilyn vos Savant?
Since 1986 she’s written the column “Ask Marilyn” in the Sunday Parade magazine. According to Guinness World Records, her IQ of 228 is the highest ever recorded.
Hardest Punch
From brains to brawn. We don’t know how hard Marilyn vos Savant punches, but it’s probably not as hard as current record-holder Francis Ngannou.
Heard of him?
He’s made a lot of news due to his MMA and boxing career, gaining more headline space than the punching king he dethroned, Tyrone Spong.
How hard?
Ngannou clocked in with a punch that, translated to energy, equals roughly 93 horsepower.
Yowza.
As you slowly wipe that shocked look from your face, realize that doesn’t in any way mean Francis can power a small family sedan. There are far too many mitigating factors that go into that number.
However, it does give you an appreciation for how much a smack from Sir Francis would hurt.
Reaction Time
This one hasn’t been competitively measured, but the fastest conscious human reactions are around 0.15 seconds, with the fastest recorded times around 0.12 seconds (120 ms).
Most of us can achieve around a 0.2 seconds reaction time.
Unconscious, or reflex, actions are faster, around 0.08 seconds (80 ms), because the signal doesn’t have to go via the brain.
Endurance
Ultra-marathons are probably the best example of human endurance. That these ultra-long run-fests are even possible, that they even happen is, frankly, remarkable.
It’s basically anything over the standard 26 mile marathon.
Around 100 miles (160 km) is typically the longest course distance raced in under 24 hours, but there are also longer multi-day races of 200 miles (320 km) or more.
Memory
The longest sequence of objects memorized in one minute is 59.
The longest sequence memorized, period, is 100,000 digits over the course of 16 hours.
Highest Gees
Gees are used to express the force exerted through acceleration (stopping, going, turning). A “g” is equal to the force of one gravity, the pull you feel standing on the surface of the Earth.
Believe it or not, the highest recorded g-force ever survived is 360, by Karl Wendlinger when he crashed his F1 car at Monaco in 1994.
That’s just hard to even imagine.
The highest sustained gees are, of course, fighter pilots, who experience the highest forces at up to 9 g.
Diminishing Returns
Outstanding physical and mental achievements have been inspiring us to better ourselves throughout human history.
We are, however, collapsing the frontiers of what may be physically possible for the human form.
It took quite a while to break the 4-minute mile, then we began breaking it routinely. Now even high school track stars can do it. Yet here we are, 70 years after that record was broken, and we’ve only managed to drop it by about 20 seconds, to 3 minutes 43 seconds.
That’s our new standard, and it has been for nearly a quarter of a century.
Are We Against The Wall?
In many ways we’re hitting the limits of physiology. Just how far can we push this bipedal organism of ours? How much was it made for?
Continuing in the running vein, the record for the 100-meter dash is still 9.58 seconds, set by the legendary Usain Bolt all the way back in 2009.
Times since then have actually slipped.
What will it take to continue to advance what the human body is capable of? New genetics? Better diets in our youth? Programs to build better, faster, stronger bodies from a young age?
While it does appear we, as a species, may be nearing the limits of what we can achieve, there’s no telling what the future might hold. Or what novel new ways we might come up with to exceed those limits.
Like most things, we have a habit of pushing the envelope until we can do more.
In the next few blogs we’ll take a look at more of the human condition.
Want to hear from us Friday mornings?
Every Friday our chief correspondent, Tai Rade (you’ll love her take on things), sends a recap of the week in space.
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