Swallowing is a mechanical action done with your muscles; that’s how astronauts can eat and how you can eat or drink upside down if you were really wanting to.
Saw someone drinking a whole beer from a funnel while being being held upside down. People do this and I basically die when drinking a sip of water while lying in bed.
Maybe the issue is that you’re too horizontal? Try doing a handstand first.
And don’t forget the funnel.
Ever heard of a kegstand?
i think it’s about getting used to it.
Peristalsis
good question actually, the esophagus can squeeze things towards the stomach without gravity’s help.
It’s even cooler than that: The esophagus can squeeze things towards the stomach against gravity. You can drink water while hanging upside down. You’ll also get a nose full of water because your sinuses would be below your mouth… But once it’s in your throat and you’re swallowing, it’ll make it to your stomach just fine.
If you wanted to avoid the sinus problem, I guess you could just lay on your back on a steep incline. Not fully upside down, so your sinus cavity is still above your mouth. That way the water would hit the back of your throat where you could swallow it, instead of just draining straight into your sinuses.
what!? i can clearly remember being like 10 hanging upside down from my knees on a jungle gym and drinking water from a bottle and having no problem at all and proving my mom that i wouldnt choke doing that
A quick swallow, maybe? (I’m thinking small mouthfuls)
nah, i always chugged down water, liked the way i felt the water slosh on my stomach xD
If you slowly inhale through your nose while drinking the pressure from the air coming in will likely direct the water towards your esophagus as well as keeping water out of your nasal cavity.
I’m too lazy to find it now, but one of the tests they tried long before NASA started sending people into space was eating a banana upside down where they figured out the digestive tract can function against gravity.
There was also an encyclopedia brown story about this in which I remember Geese and Ducks rely on gravity to swallow, therefore they wouldn’t be able to eat in space.
They let that smarmy know it all shit into space? Bugs Meaney should have just kicked his ass.
That’s a lot of fucking honey!
There is no such thing
No, honey definitely exists
Honey is a lie told to us by the bees in order to trick us into building beehives for them
Bee movie was a documentary
But ‘fucking honey’?
I have terrible news
dafuq
You don’t enjoy a light snack of one slice of bread + a quarter cup of honey?
Yeah, keep posing this images, don’t complain when Freezer attacks looking for the other 7 balls
Don’t worry, Goku will save us. Well, some of us. When he eventually gets here, after the Z warriors have been beaten up.
Or if we’re lucky a new strong character will one shot him as his introduction.
I think there was a science experiments book for kids that dared me to drink water upside down through a straw while hanging from monkey bars or something. It was meant to show how our body deliberately moves food towards the stomach instead of solely relying on gravity, but instead it showed that I my legs were too weak.
A shame these experiments are deemed to dangerous nowadays and people have to show their ignorance online, simply because the new metal straws have pierced the brains of anyone who did them.
Well, you did learn something.
And they never skipped leg day ever again.
because the new metal straws have pierced the brains of anyone who did them.
I am confused by this, straws go in the mouth, if people are sticking them in their brains, they’re doing it wrong, or are you saying there is a crack team of assasins out there who’ve vowed to keep this knowledge secret in a particularly gruesome manner?
I implied that I fell from the monkey bars, and since I was drinking through a straw, I fell head first onto my water glass with the straw in my mouth that was below me. A common misconception of metal straws is that they are dangerous and can pierce through the mouth into the brain.
I guess I could specify where the glass is in the experiment.
A common misconception of metal straws is that they are dangerous and can pierce through the mouth into the brain.
I mean it depends on the diameter of the straw. If the straw is thin as a needle, i imagine it sure can. I mean it’s only about the pressure, not the total amount of force. And pressure is force per area, so if the cross-section area of the straw is small, it will generate enormous pressure and that can surely pierce your skin.
No need to pierce the skull if you’re coming from underneath.
I mean I can totally see kids choking on water while doing this too. Yes muscles but I am sure gravity helps too.
This was legitimately a significant concern that early space programs had. Like, how well would people be able to swallow in free fall, would certain kinds of food cause problems? The food experiments during the Gemini program are pretty interesting
Some poor soul has never watched Bill Nye the Science Guy… what has the world come too… D:
Most of the non-English speaking world hasn’t seen him as kids. I don’t remember where I learned about peristalsis, but I grew up just fine.
This was my jam as a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time…_Life
I’ve just realised that because of my esophageal dysmotility I wouldn’t be able to eat in space.
Is this a writing prompt about being left behind on a dying earth because you’d starve on your voyage to Mars?
Ehh. He could be “fed” via intravenous injections or a stomach bag
Do you jump up and down after each bite?
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I don’t know about you guys, but I just open my throat straight down to my stomach and pour the food in.
Baby bird style
Given how filthy the ISS is, I don’t know if I’d want to eat anything not nuked into oblivion.
Why would it be filthy? It’s not like they get a lot of dirt out there
Dust comes from human skin flakes.
There a giant vacuum though.
Just open two opposite windows.
Well that didn’t work (windows outlook debacle).
Part of it yes, but I’d assume they also clean there sometimes.
Part of it is I don’t know how skin particles will act inside a space station. Are there static electricity forces that would make it stick to surfaces, or does it remain suspended in air until the filtration gets to it?
Static electricity would definitely be a factor, but there’s probably pretty good air circulation and filtering. That combined with regular wipe downs of surfaces probably keeps dust under control.
I know the moon missions in the past had a hell of a time dealing with lunar dust. It’s super fine and static was sticking it to everything.
Imagine trying to clean it. You can’t whip out a mop. Showers, wash cycles etc are all no go. Not too mention experiments from plants, chemicals, drugs etc which create their own issues. In some ways it’s clean, but others not so much.
You can use a vacuum cleaner, but since there’s hardly any gravity most would already get picked up be a simple air filter.
Does this happen to your blood too?
There’s a slight increase in the blood pressure in your upper body, and a small possibility of thrombosis, blood clots forming in your veins. But after 50+ years of space flight no one has had complications.
Though most don’t stay more than a few months up there.
also who would stay more than 6 months in space? a journey to mars takes about 6 months on the most fuel-efficient trajectory.
due to how weird orbital mechanics are, there’s one (and only this one) more fuel-efficient trajectory between earth and mars and it’s the so-called Hohmann Transfer Orbit ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit ). It takes 6 months.
Veins are small so capillary action keeps things in order.
With no gravity though you’ll have higher blood pressure to your head (and less to the legs)- it kinda makes astronauts faces a bit puffy. iirc this can slightly negatively affect vision long term.
Most of your body processes are in a small enough space that capillary action overtakes gravity.
With no gravity though you’ll have higher blood pressure to your head (and less to the legs)
So what you’re saying is they should alternate between upside down and right side up
If you put it on a sandwich, yes.
“bread”
Oh that’s interesting, I wonder if it’s easier to get heartburn in space? It’s common to need to sit upright to keep the acid down.
