[extropy-chat] Re: Are dwarfs better for long durationspaceflight?

[kevinfreels.com]

> I disagree with the dwarf idea. I mean I would not
> stop a dwarf that wanted to be an astronaut, but I
> wouldn't engineer them for space travel. There are
> admittedly some advantages to being small in space,
> there are lots of disadvantages as well. Mass has
> usefulness.
>
I wasn;t really referring to "engineering" dwarfs. I was thinking they would
already be what we need to be. SImply selecting the most healthy of them all
should do the trick. What I am wanting to know is whether there is a real
reduction in launch weight by reducing the size of the occupants. Do they
need less space/air/water/food? Does a half-size human consume half as much,
or is that huge brain of ours consuming the majority of the life support?

I am also talking short term. Sure it would be nice to engineer a fully
recycling closed system but launching such a thing right now isn't an
option. The money it would take to develop it and make sure it was capable
of keeping the crew alive without malfunctioning is just too much. If one
thing in the loop went wrong during the duration of the spaceflight, the
whole crew would end up dead.

My thought is that if you are building a spaceship for a Mars mission and
you could reduce the 2 yr living space/food/water/Oxygen weight by even a
third, you would have substantial savings in launch weight and overall cost.
If you had smaller people with smaller needs, you could build smaller ships
that require less fuel. Less fuel also means less weight and even lowers the
fuel requirements further.