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by jjmarr8 hours ago |
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upvoteby porphyra8 hours ago|
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Even with actual asbestos, the risk goes up a lot with duration and intensity of exposure. Probably, the risks of getting cancer from a brief exposure is fairly low, and combined with the ridiculously small sample size of only 12 people to ever set foot on the moon, it's natural that none of them got "moon cancer". That said, with asbesto, it's still possible to get cancer even from brief exposures:

> Although it is clear that the health risks from asbestos exposure increase with heavier exposure and longer exposure time, investigators have found asbestos-related diseases in individuals with only brief exposures. Generally, those who develop asbestos-related diseases show no signs of illness for a long time after exposure. It can take from 10 to 40 years or more for symptoms of an asbestos-related condition to appear. [1]

[1] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/s...

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upvoteby HarHarVeryFunny7 hours ago|
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Part of what makes asbestos (and also fiberglass) dangerous, isn't just the sharpness but also the long shape which means that macrophages can't engulf them.

Moon dust is still problematic since although smaller it also can't be digested by macrophages and it's believed it would accumulate in the lungs, building up on repeated exposure.

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upvoteby LorenPechtel6 hours ago|
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Sounds to me like the threat would be silicosis.
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upvoteby loloquwowndueo8 hours ago|
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Only 4 are still alive, all in their 90s so that’d be a long time - even if some do have cancer at this stage it’s not likely to affect life expectancy I guess.
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upvoteby AngryData8 hours ago|
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We also have to remember that those astronauts were some of the most physically fit individuals in a nation of hundreds of millions which may skew the expected medical outcomes. Especially if we assume they always had the best healthcare available, if from nothing else than doctors asking similiar qiestions about the effects of space travel.
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upvoteby tempaccount50505 hours ago|
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That's just simply not true at all, I don't know where you're getting this idea. Literally every Olympic athlete was more fit that an any astronaut ever.
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upvoteby spauldo2 hours ago|
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Most astronauts were chosen from a decent sized pool of military pilots. Pilots are some of the most expensive assets the military has (moreso than the planes they fly) and they have to be physically fit. People wanting to become astronauts are subjected to rigorous physical testing.

No, they're not Olympic athletes but they're considerably more fit than the average American.

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upvoteby themafia7 hours ago|
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The military does not survey the population and then select the fittest. So, as a function, it cannot actually perform as you say.

It's the same with F1. "We have the best drivers in the world!" You have the best drivers from the self-selection mechanism you impose on the sport. There are zero reasons to think these categories have good overlap.

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upvoteby zamadatix6 hours ago|
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They don't need to have sampled the entire population to have ended up with some of the most x individuals of the nation of y population size, they just need a large enough pool that the top end up among some of the best.
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upvoteby wat100008 hours ago|
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The exposure was brief, too. Wikipedia says mesothelioma has been known to develop from exposures of "only" 1 month. That's a scary short time if it's in your home or workplace, but comfortably longer than an Apollo mission. Could be an issue for a future base, though.
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upvoteby bdamm7 hours ago|
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It definitely puts a damper on my personal enthusiasm for visiting the moon hotel, or even encouraging researchers to live there.
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upvoteby altmanaltman7 hours ago|
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I mean Neil Armstrong literally smoked and did not "believe" in excercise so they were absolutely not the most physically fittest people. They were just freaks in terms of enduring a lot of stress tests. Physical endurance is just one aspect they train for. Other aspects were much more valued like them being military flight pilots/smart enough to understand the systems/mentally strong enough to not break down etc. You were not selecting for absolute raw fitness for the apollo missions.
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upvoteby AngryData3 hours ago|
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They didn't select for pure physical fitness but they were already selected for fitness as a pilot and then again when they were selected from the pilots to train as an astonaut. Its not like they just picked arbitrarily from the potential pool of candidates and gambled on getting better than average.
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upvoteby ButlerianJihad2 hours ago|
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It is important to point out that prominent physicians highly recommended cigarette smoking as a beneficial hobby for all Americans to partake in.
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upvoteby spauldo2 hours ago|
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Everybody smoked back then. Besides, until you get older your health is much more affected by your lifestyle than whether or not you smoke.
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