Researchers believe with the help of Microsoft’s Kinect, the mass of an astronaut in weightlessness to accurately measure. This should astronauts be easier to their body condition to keep an eye on.
As astronauts for extended periods of time in weightlessness condition, they lose up to 15 percent of body mass because of the lack of gravity, the muscles weaken. By regularly exercising in space, this effect is partly counteracted. So to train astronauts in the ISS stay daily two hours.
To the body condition of astronauts in the holes to keep the weight. Because there is weightlessness, however, only the mass of a person directly be determined. This should be a spaceman sit on a chair with a spring, and this back and forth letting it roll by themselves. Because the stiffness of the spring is known, on the basis of the uitslagtijd the mass to be determined.
To the Italian space institute, scientists have an alternative measurement method developed, reports New Scientist. Therefore, they use the Kinect hardware to Microsoft for the Xbox 360 sells. With the Kinect-camera can be an astronaut for a 3d-bodyscan is generated. By this model, to compare with a database in which the bodyshape of 28,000 people are registered, according to the scientists, up to 97 percent accurate calculation of the mass be made. This deviation would be comparable to the current method.
The Kinect system has according to the developers the advantage that it requires less space it will take because, for example, in the wall of a spacecraft can be integrated. The scientists, however, have not yet been able to place the system in the space to try out, but there are plans to set up the hardware in a parabolic flight in an aircraft to test.
A scientist from Nasa reacts cautiously positive on the invention, but states that fluids in the body by weightlessness redistributed and, thus, the 3d model may not be entirely correct. By the data coming from the Kinect, however, to combine with the fixed mass from the measurements via the ‘veermethode’, would, however, more accurate measurements are possible.
