The strongman who played Grigor Kligan is able to survive on a planet whose gravity is 4.6 times that of Earth.
Fans of the cult TV series Game of Thrones remember well the Icelandic athlete and actor Haftor Björnsson, who played the fiend of hell - the cruel knight Grigor Kligan, nicknamed Horus. The Icelander really is a real mountain of muscles - with an increase of 206 centimeters, he weighs 200 kilograms. At the same time, Haftor is professionally engaged in power extreme sports and in 2015 broke a record that was held for 1000 years! Ancient Icelandic sagas describe the case when the Viking Orm Storolsson managed to take three steps, holding a 10-meter log weighing 650 kilograms on his shoulders. The record cost the Viking dearly; according to the chronicler, he broke his back after taking these three steps. Not surprisingly, the text notes that it took 50 people to put this colossus on Orm's shoulders. Björnsson repeated this exercise without any harm to his health,but managed to take 5 steps! The question is, what is the connection between the Viking, who played Grigor Clegan, and space travel to other planets? It turns out to be the most straightforward. Researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, used the anatomical parameters of Haftor Björnsson, champion of the 2018 World's Strongest Man, to set the limits of human ability to colonize planets with powerful gravity.to set the limits of human ability to colonize planets with powerful gravity.to set the limits of human ability to colonize planets with powerful gravity.
“We hope that sooner or later, but humanity will have to populate planets outside the solar system,” says the lead author of the study, Nikola Poljak. - The degree of suitability of a planet for settlement depends on such physical parameters as temperature, level of insolation, composition and pressure of the atmosphere. But the problems associated with this can be solved with a spacesuit. Gravity is perhaps the only environmental factor that we are not yet able to bypass.
To begin with, scientists analyzed the strength of the bones of our skeleton. It turned out that the human tibia is able to withstand a force that exceeds the gravity of the Earth by 90 times. However, such a load is within the power of our skeleton in a static position. Since, for example, during running, the load on the bones increases by about 10 times, compared to the state of rest. Consequently, the human skeleton is designed to function in worlds where the gravitational force exceeds the Earth's gravity by no more than 10 times. Otherwise, the colonists will simply break bones during movement.
However, man is not only made of bones - he is made of flesh and blood. At high gravity, blood leaves the head and chest and, under the influence of gravity, accumulates in the lower extremities. Already at a 5G load, an ordinary person can lose consciousness due to the outflow of blood from the head, trained cosmonauts are able to withstand a short-term load of 9-10 G. But during take-off and landing, astronauts are in a special cradle in a recumbent position. What are the maximum driving loads? And here Haftor Björnsson's record 5 steps with a weight of 650 kilos on his shoulders are a good reference point for defining the boundaries of human capabilities.
According to the calculations of Croatian physicists, a person with the athletic training of an Icelandic powerlifter is able to slowly move along the surface of the planet, where the force of gravity exceeds the gravity of the Earth by 4.6 times. This is the ultimate value for the functioning of the control systems of the human body. However, for the average person, the realistic limit is 3-4 G.
Taking this knowledge into account, scientists have calculated how many planets mankind is capable of colonizing. To date, astronomers have officially confirmed the existence of 3605 exoplanets. For 594 of them, it was possible to establish the radius and mass - these parameters are necessary to calculate the force of gravity. Gravity renders 172 planets unfit for colonization. At the same time, on 422 planets, the gravity is less than 3.5 G. As for the actor from "Game of Thrones", given his outstanding physique, he could colonize 35 more planets, on which life is inaccessible to mere mortals.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
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