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<DIV>Has there been any real serious thought to the idea of operating our
entire manned space program with midgets (or people with dwarfism, or little
people, or whatever word you prefer to think of as less offensive since my
intention is not to offend)? </DIV>
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<DIV>I know some will think I am joking or be put off by the idea, but I am
completely serious. I was thinking the other night about how we would first
begin to alter ourselves to make ourselves more fit for space travel and the
first thing that came to mind was to reduce the plumbing, life-support, and
livable space requirements. One way to do that would be to engineer people to be
much smaller than normal. Then it dawned on me that we already have fully
capable miniature humans among us and there is no need for such an ambitious
plan. Half-size humans would greatly reduce all the living requirements for
people on long duration space missions and would therefore reduce the cost and
launch weight as well, wouldn't it?</DIV>
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<DIV>The more I thought about it, the more I realized that midgets may very well
be the perfect human astronaut - or as close as we can get naturally. I am left
to wonder if their compact size would make them less succeptable to the effects
of long duration spaceflight. Also, they could probably move around better in
zero-G without those long dangly limbs. </DIV>
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<DIV>I know that the required height in the US program is 64-76 inches. At 62
inches even I am too short to be a shuttle commander. I am sure the reason is
that the entire shuttle was designed around people of that height. A payload
specialist requirements are a bit more generous with a minimum of 58 inches, but
why is that minimum still so tall? Is it simply because of the design of the
couches and harnesses? </DIV>
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<DIV>Maybe NASA is afraid to propose such a thing. Are they afraid to offend? I
would think it would be an honor. Many midgets have trouble getting jobs because
of discrimination. They aren't even protected in the constitution - it doesn;t
say "race, religion, color, creed, sex, or height". </DIV>
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<DIV>Have midgets been simply overlooked? Maybe they have been discriminated
against because of their small size despite the fact that they would be better
for the job? This could be because of the original public-relations strategy
used by the US government early in the space program which has carried over to
today. John Glen was 5'10" and I am sure the rest of the original Mercury 7 were
close to 6 ft as well.</DIV>
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<DIV>Or am I wrong about the reduced requirements? Is there no substantial
savings by launching 3 foot humans over 6 foot humans? Are their air.water/food
requirements the same as an average height human being? I can find very little
information about this. I did find an interesting article about the etymology of
the words "dwarf" and "midget" here: <A
href="http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/bigenough/special_dwarfism_ety.html">http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/bigenough/special_dwarfism_ety.html</A>.
But I can find very little reliable information regarding the issues that would
make the real difference in space travel. One thing I did note was that the word
"modget" turns up a lot of derogatory information and the words "dwarf" "dwarfs"
and "dwarfism" turn up a lot of sci-fi/fantasy info. Neither gives much good
information.</DIV>
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<DIV>So if anyone has some decent links for informatoin on this topic, please
share it. I am also interested in your comments. Am I justway off here, or is
this something we should take a serious look at?</DIV>
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