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I think manned space flight is a waste. The one thing the ISS is teaching us is that the human body is not suitable for space travel. They have to exercise for >2hrs/day and they are still invalids when they get back. Food, water, oxygen, temperature, radiation, psychological problems, these are all issues that are not going to go away. We have by far gained more knowledge at lower cost from unmanned probes. All we get from manned space travel that could not be done by machine is cool pictures of people floating around.

If I were king, I would take the money spent on manned space travel and divide it between unmanned probes and basic research into physics. Manned space travel, the way we really want it, isn't going to happen until we solve some fundamental problems, like the speed of light and artificial gravity. In the mean time, we could be exploring and learning about our solar system, and maybe even sending probes to our nearest stellar neighbor.

OK, flame away :-)

What is needed is a high Tesla (not the car, not the genius) magnetic environment sufficient to push from above on the water molecules within the body. Figure out how to do that on the cheap, with wide coverage to simulate gravity’s physical loading effect to give a 1 G workout.

Actually the truth is that "The one thing the ISS is teaching us is that the human body is not suitable for space travel" using current technology and methods.

The Orion Project (motto: Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970 which was killed in 1964) got around those problems completely. However, there was not only a total failure of political will, but also the concept was politically incorrect. And so we are stuck using second rate technologies and methods to this day.