RE: To Grav or not to Grav?

G'day,

Don said:
>Hopefully no one is shooting at you, 

That would be a no for bullets, but a yes for large pieces of wildlife,
volcanic activity, internal standing waves and a good deal many other
things. These things don't have a smooth ride.

>Also Scientists are a driven lot, who frequently
>forget to do such mundane things as eating and 
>sleeping when they are on to something lol.

OK you may have a point there ;)

Laserlight pointed out:
>Two situations, different thus:
>a) marine scientist is not going to 
>be bouncing over the countryside
>trying to keep up with the tanks,
>so is (presumably) not going to have
>a rough ride once under water.

They're riding turbulence trying to keep up with what they're measuring
or
the automated hydro buoys. Coming back with bruises, scratches,
fractures
etc from getting bounced into a point instrument panel is standard
practice,
because no one thought it possible you could get thrown in THAT
direction.

>b) marine scientist doesn't have to 
>worry about being combat effective
>immediately on debarking

That depends. If you do decomp stops down there you are expected to be
able
to haul ass and stow stuff on immediate exit from the sub. If you don't
do
decomp stops then you've got to be prepared to get into a baro chamber
within 2 minutes of resurfacing or being one VERY sick/dead duck. The
atmospheric pressure changes going down under water are WAY bigger than
anything involved in going land to space and even the pressurised subs
can't
protect you from all of it.

>c) marine scientist is, I assume, not 
>going to be making this trip every day or two.

For the length of the cruise (which can be upto a month at least) they
may
be doing it daily, though tag teaming usually means you could get a 36 -
48
hour break rather than only 12 - 20 hrs (while another team is down).

John A joins in:
>As well as being far better paid. . . 

Man have you got that oh so wrong!! ;)

>Congrats.  Now load up that submersible with
>everything you need to survive for 2-3 weeks, scads of
>ammunition, demolition kit, mines, etc.  Then drive it
>at 35mph cross-country while loaded down with LBE,
>Mask, wearing a Kevlar, and holding a rifle or machine
>gun.  Then live out of the back of that submersible
>with 6 other guys.  I doubt the experiences are
>comprable.

Given all the science kit, food, supplies, backup, lifesupport in case
the
worst happens you have in these things I'd say it is comparable based on
the
"fully kitted out vehicles" I've seen at Lavarack (Aussie base in
Townsville) or in pics of guys on deployment. As for living out of them
with
6 other guys, you admittedly don't have to do that, but you get the
equivalent on the small dive research boats where you have to hot bunk
(there is only one bed and you have to slide into that) and even though
they're a different shape, space wise they'd also be comparable to the
kind
of tanks we're talking about.

I don't claim that the military don't get it tough, but I wouldn't just
write off so easily what civilians have been doing for a while now. I
think
if you looked into it there is stuff that could be learnt on both sides
and
that the experiences are a lot more comparable than you think. For
instance,
long term cruise scientists and Antarctic overwinterers suffer an
extreme
form of the same psychological syndromes found in returning prisoners of
war
and highly stressed military personnel returning from the bloodiest of
warzones... as result "on site councillors" are invariably ex-military
as
they are the only ones qualified to deal with these problems.

Cheers

Beth