Under Armour/ Lockheed Martin 'Mach 39' suit (Sochi Games)

[Grey Havoc]

Lockheed Martin just had a bit of a PR misfire over at the Sochi Games: http://tracking.si.com/2014/02/13/american-speedskating-troubles-under-armour-suits/

[IMAGE CREDIT: Under Armour / Sports Illustrated (CNN.com)]​

Under Armour’s design for the suits came from an intricate analysis of speedskating science and dynamics. The result was the “Mach 39″ suit, which promised to be the fastest suit ever.

The Baltimore-based apparel company partnered with advanced technology and defense firm Lockheed Martin to create a uniform that involves five different textiles, all of which have a different purpose, such as lessening friction. Overall, engineers of the suit wanted to focus on the aerodynamics of the entire body, first analyzing how air interacted with the body and using that data to develop a technologically advanced, physics-driven design.

Under Armour’s contract with U.S. speedskating is set to expire at the conclusion of the Sochi Games.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I'm not going to be much interested in the Olympics (or the Tour de France or the Superbowl or any of the rest of it) until they get rid of stupid rules against the use of performance enhancing drugs and genetic manipulation.

 

[GTX]

I'm not going to be much interested in the Olympics (or the Tour de France or the Superbowl or any of the rest of it) until they get rid of stupid rules against the use of performance enhancing drugs and genetic manipulation.

Well there's an enlightened point of view... : Are you willing to be the guinea pig for the trials?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Well there's an enlightened point of view... :

Indeed it is.

Are you willing to be the guinea pig for the trials?

I'm not an athlete. However, there are *lots* of willing athletes even now more than happy to improve their performance by whatever means necessary. Look at Lance Armstrong... kicked the worlds ass at biking with minimal tinkering. This thread is about skaters who were willing to improve their performance via advanced clothes, and it bit 'em. Virtually even competitor in the Olympics today did NOT get there just because they are talented and skilled, but ALSO because vast sums were expended on terribly un-natural training regimens.

Since improving upon nature is inevitable, why not do it out in the open?

I'm not really much of a transhumanist, but it's idiotic to believe that it ain't coming.

 

[Michel Van]

I'm not really much of a transhumanist, but it's idiotic to believe that it ain't coming.

They gonna have hell of a future with those Upgrades…
with this

Or with that…

 

[Orionblamblam]

They gonna have hell of a future with those Upgrades…

Depends on how they do 'em. If you ban performance enhancing drugs and genetic tinkering, the only people doing them will, by definition, be criminals. It'll be like gun bans or drug prohibitions... by making them illegal, not only does it move into the shadows, but you turn it over to people with minimal interest in the long-term good of the species. Best to get this stuff out in the open. If it means a few hundred athletes get turned into ragemonsters or giant balls of cancer... well, sucks for them, but it's better for the species, as the dangers *and* the fixes and benefits will be made publicly known and publicly available.

Someone had to be the first guy with a heart transplant. Another was the first with an artificial heart. Another was the first to get treated with penicillin. Or toget cut on by a robot, zapped with a laser, or have their tumors nuked with a beam of radiation. Dangerous for the first folks, but we're better off that they did it.

And so, *someone* will work on a Captain America gene treatment to turn schmoes into super soldiers. Do we want the announcement of such a thing to come in the form of Wolf Blitzer going bugnuts about how five million 8-foot-tall Chinese behemoths just landed in Japan and are taking over the joint, or in the form of Wolf Blitzer yammering unintelligibly about the latest gene treatments being used by marathon runners and boxers, with side commentary about the spinoffs such as gene treatments for this and that genetic diseases?

 

[Arjen]

Shouldn't this be moved to The Bar?

 

[GTX]

I think someone has been watching too much X-men and the like... :

 

[Orionblamblam]

I think someone has been watching too much X-men and the like... :

Really? You think that steroids and genetic engineering are stuck in the realm of fanciful sci-fi?

Wow. Way to pay attention for the last *decade,* dude...

Testers fear reality of genetically modified OlympiansGenetically modified athletes in Athens? Bring them onGene Doping: The Possibility of Human Genetic Enhancement in Sports

 

[Arjen]

I suggest you have a talk with the 'enhanced' athletes of the old DDR. Ask them about the lingering aftereffects of performance enhancing drugs. Or perhaps ask their surviving family.

The competitive nature of sports should insure that if drugs and genetic manipulation are legalised, athletes wil be at the cutting edge of developments, with lots of experimental stuff. Experimental treatments are fine if there's a medical necessity for them. In sports, there's no such necessity.

Hals und Beinbruch.

 

[Grey Havoc]

I think someone has been watching too much X-men and the like... :

Really? You think that steroids and genetic engineering are stuck in the realm of fanciful sci-fi?

Wow. Way to pay attention for the last *decade,* dude...

Testers fear reality of genetically modified OlympiansGenetically modified athletes in Athens? Bring them onGene Doping: The Possibility of Human Genetic Enhancement in Sports

I think GTX was talking about the appearance of the suits.

 

[bobbymike]

The competitive nature of sports should insure that if drugs and genetic manipulation are legalised, athletes wil be at the cutting edge of developments, with lots of experimental stuff. Experimental treatments are fine if there's a medical necessity for them. In sports, there's no such necessity.

Hals und Beinbruch.

And you don't think this is true now with these things illegal?

 

[GTX]

Really? You think that steroids and genetic engineering are stuck in the realm of fanciful sci-fi?

Did I say that? What is in the realm of science fiction is genetically engineered super soldiers and "five million 8-foot-tall Chinese behemoths"... :


Besides, what I was taking exception to was the ascertain that bans on use of performance enhancing drugs and genetic manipulation in sport were stupid. For one it is not in the spirit of the events nor is it in the health interests of those affected. I believe that if someone is openly calling for such things then they should be at the front of the queue when it comes to trailing them...or aren't they prepared to but their money health where their mouth (or keyboard) is? :

 

[Colonial-Marine]

For those athletes that would rather not risk all sorts of potential nasty side effects there should certainly remain competitions where such performance enhancing drugs, etc. aren't allowed.

Beyond that I don't know. I suppose you could have competitions, leagues, etc. where "everything is allowed" for those who are interested. If anything it would be interesting to observe. Yet it's going to be a bit concerning when we get to the point where you can watch steroid freaks, genetically engineered ubermen, and people with mechanical limbs punch through brick walls and throw cars at each other. Not the event itself as much as the consequences on the rest of society.

 

[Arjen]

I think there are lots of athletes breaking the rules banning performance enhancing drugs. Not legalising those drugs should lessen the pressure on other athletes to resort to those drugs, but drugs probably can't be banished from sports completely.

Right now, if an athlete gets caught using certain performance enhancing drugs, that athlete is banned from sports. I see no reason to fundamentally change that policy. If a drug is safe to use, accessible to all athletes, there wouldn't be much good in banning it. Paracetamol is fairly safe to use - in moderation. The issue is with the experimental stuff with side-effects not yet fully understood.

It' s not about removing toxic performance enhancing drugs from sports, it's about limiting their use to such an extent that the majority of athletes do not feel forced to use them to remain competitive.

 

[GTX]

I don't believe we should encourage people to think that use of such drugs and the like is an acceptable or desirable thing. Even creating a nothing is banned class of sporting event would certainly risk that - people's would look to such as some sort of 'hero'. To me it is no different to people thinking taking recreational drugs is somehow cool despite their well recognised side effects.

 

[Orionblamblam]

What is in the realm of science fiction is genetically engineered super soldiers and "five million 8-foot-tall Chinese behemoths"... :

If genetically enhanced "super athletes"are not sci-fi, what makes you think genetically enhanced soldiers - especially in an authoritarian, miltaristic state like China with a dire excess male population - *is* sci-fi?

it is not in the spirit of the events...

The athletes *now* are professionals who spend virtually *all* their time being scientifically trained and equipped, using vast sums of government and corporate funds to do so (heard a report on the news yesterday about wind tunnels being used to perfect ski jumpers). Is *that* in the spirit of the games? How about the very topic of this thread, the "Mach 39" suit. Here we have a mechanical device that, had it worked, might have given the wearers an artificial advantage over their competition.

Genetic enhancement is merely another obvious step. If you think such things should be kept out of the games, fine... but then why not argue that *every* speed skater, regardless of nationality, should be given the exact same racing suit? The same skates? The same funding and training?

nor is it in the health interests of those affected.

Getting punched in the face is not in the health interests of boxers. Yet they seem to accept the risk.

I believe that if someone is openly calling for such things then they should be at the front of the queue when it comes to trailing them...

Where have I heard that before? Oh, yes...

You oughta be shot. Or stabbed, lose a leg. To be a surgeon, you know? Know what kind of pain you're dealing with. They make psychiatrists get psychoanalyzed before they can get certified, but they don't make a surgeon get cut on. That seem right to you?

Anyway, are you suggesting that if I think people should, if they so choose, be allowed to throw themselves out of perfectly good aircraft, I myself should be thrown out of an aircraft? That if I don't want to go skydiving I should therefore by default be opposed to anyone else going skydiving?

I can assure you that plummeting from 5,000 feet in inherently dangerous. And unlike genetic enhancement, the benefit to society as a whole from skydiving for fun is fairly minimal. I am quite unlikely to ever *need* a parachute, much less the latest and most advanced type developed for skydivers. But the genetic therapies that would derive from athletic enhancement just might come in handy some day. With my incredibly crappy lungs, the sort of treatments that would make a marathon runners lungs more effective might be of value to me.

 

[Orionblamblam]

It' s not about removing toxic performance enhancing drugs from sports, it's about limiting their use to such an extent that the majority of athletes do not feel forced to use them to remain competitive.

OK, let's imagine a new scenario, where performance enhancing drugs and gene therapies remain banned *and* the ban is somehow effectively maintained and supported. Olympic athlete from here on out are the very best in *un* enhanced humanity.

So... a century from now, when virtually *everyone* has been genetically modified, enhanced and selected, the Olympics will be a curious novelty, kinda like watching cavemen trying to play chess. (Imagine motorsports where the auto technology is not allowed to advance beyond what was used the first time that particular race was run.) Rather than displays of amazing performance, the unenhanced antiquated Olympians will put on shows of staggering slowness and weakness.

Might be Twilight Zone episode in that.

 

[Arjen]

The rules are changing all the time. In car racing, limits are enforced to ensure a reasonably level playing field, as well as ensuring cars won't go to pieces during racing. If cars-with-occupants-inside or athletes going to pieces is what attracts people to sports, I find that sort of distasteful. I would guess that's not what is most attractive about sports.

I don't mind new drugs being used in sports, if they are properly tested. What happened to the DDR athletes should be a permanent reminder of what can go wrong if experimental medicine is applied to sports.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20140214/DABVAAJO2.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLY_SPD_ANATOMY_OF_A_DEBACLE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

[Orionblamblam]

What happened to the DDR athletes should be a permanent reminder of what can go wrong if experimental medicine is applied to sports.

I think the bigger lesson there: "Collectivist dictatorships suck." A hell of a lot more people than just athletes suffered in East Germany.

 

[Arjen]

That would be another topic.

 

[Orionblamblam]

That would be another topic.

Aren't they all.

 

[Michel Van]

During Cold War the Communist and USA try "Better Win Through Chemistry"

Yes the US try it too, but not in insane level like the east germans or Romanian
were even transgender men were send as woman into battle, aah competitions

After Cold War, the "Better Win Through Chemistry" business became private.
like Tour de France, who became a rolling doping drug test track for years.
and yes allot death racing cyclists in last years, had the wrong stuff in there blood...

next to athletics, basketball, baseball, Football and also in American football used also "Better Win Through Chemistry"
Dam, is there a sport were NOT use doping ?!

 

[Jemiba]

Who's willing to work for about 20 hours every day, 24/7 is still often regarded as an example for others.
And there are enough, wo do this regularly and voluntarily.
In most countries, there still aren't legal measures, if someone drinks too much alcohol, as long, as he doesn't
break any law.
Who wants to do bodybuilding can do, blowing up his body in a way, that often has severe medical implications,
even if just legal substances are used.
The condemnable thing about the use of doping agents in the former GDR was, that the sportsmen weren't informed
about the drugs they got and the possible negative effets. Probably a lot of them, would have agreed to using them,
just as sportsmen in "the west" did, although, several cases are known, were they didn't know, too, what they were
given. And, to be fair, it probably wasn't done with acceptance by their country, at least not with that kind of government
aid.
So, why not just legalise it officially for professional sports ? Every sportsman would have to sign an agreement, that
it is ok to use, whatever would be enhancing his capabilities, but there's no way of bringing an action against anybody,
if something goes wrong !
Of course, this could somewhat damage the reputation of the Olympic games and other such "clean" events. Well,
the world still needs fairytales !

 

[HaveBrew]

I found this story to be amazing. You spend all of this time and money designing this expensive suit, and you never actually put it on an athlete and see how it works in something besides equations and computer models?

 

[Orionblamblam]

I found this story to be amazing. You spend all of this time and money designing this expensive suit, and you never actually put it on an athlete and see how it works in something besides equations and computer models?

It would hardly be the first time that a major project was torpedoed because the computer was trusted over, say, wind tunnel testing. Ask OSC.

 

[Stargazer]

I do agree with Orionblamblam when he says that "enhancing" the athletes performances by whatever means is inescapable and that it is highly hypocritical to pretend otherwise.

Let's not forget that sports events exist on such a global scale thanks to advertising. Advertisers require that their products be promoted, and their pay checks largely depend on the popularity of the sports. What makes a sport attractive is the capacity of the watcher to believe he's going to see something phenomenal, sportsmen outdoing themselves and beating previous records. However, the natural abilities of the human being, though in perpetual evolution, cannot evolve so drastically as to notably improve performance year after year indefinitely. There is a stage when the natural limitations of the human body and its environment are reached.

Now go tell people that there will be no chance of improving the performance they watched in the previous Olympics/Tour de France/whatever. Who will watch sports if they cannot expect some degree of improvement? If you want to go beyond that and offer billions of watchers a worthwhile spectacle, something has to be done to enhance what a normal human being can do. It's pure, inescapable logic. And so, instead of pretending that drugs or genetic tinkering is morally unethical, perhaps provision should be made for a certain amount of that, with proper controls to see that no life is endangered, and the viewers be warned beforehand by some legal disclaimer that some of the performance they are going to be watching may be obtained by various kinds of "improvement".

 

[Orionblamblam]

Now go tell people that there will be no chance of improving the performance they watched in the previous Olympics/Tour de France/whatever. Who will watch sports if they cannot expect some degree of improvement?

Indeed. People actually cared about the Tour de France during the Lance Armstrong years; now that he's gone, it has fallen off the cultural radar screen. And why did they care? Partially because Lance had a made-for-Lifetime back story, what with the nut cancer and all, but I think mostly because he was kicking ass at it. And apparently he was only doing that because of the EVIL doping. Not due to the high-tech bicycles. Or the high-tech clothes. Or the extremely expensive training. Or the artificial foods & supplements and such. Or any natural talent. Nope. Just the drugs.

Which meant that doping made a bicycle race interesting, for a while.

 

[bipa]

Man, we obviously didn't watch the same Tour de France then...
The Armstrong years were dead boring.
The race was completely locked. Nothing was happening.
The recent years have been much more entertaining, even with big cheaters like Landis and Rasmussen.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Man, we obviously didn't watch the same Tour de France then..

Pffff. Nobody *watches* the Tour de France. It was only interesting as a discussion topic for a few of the Lance years. Now that the interesting aspects of it are gone, it's about as interesting as soccer...i.e., not at all. I'm surprised the TdF fans haven't taken to drunken rioting like soccer fans just to make it modestly interesting.

 

[Arjen]

Every summer, European papers, television and radio are hijacked to report on all that happens/might happen/has happened/inane speculation about new ways to cheat in the Tour de France. Giro d'Italia. Vuelta.

Even The Economist has a theme page for it.

Nobody *watches* the Tour de France.

I wish. Regular journalism gets thoroughly swamped during the cycling season.

Very few sports have a global following. That doesn't mean nobody's watching.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Every summer, European papers, television and radio are hijacked to report...

Yeah, but that's Europe, not the civilized world.

Anyway, next time the "Tour de France" comes around, it's looking like it'll be the "Tour de Putins Panzers Around Europe." Moderately more interesting.

 

[Arjen]

Yeah, but that's Europe, not the civilized world.

A roundabout way of admitting people *are* watching the Tour de France. Can't think why they do it, though.

Civilized?
As far as I'm concerned, cricket's tea break is an example of civilization in sports. Not much else jumps to mind.

Anyway, next time the "Tour de France" comes around, it's looking like it'll be the "Tour de Putins Panzers Around Europe."

Maybe that's what it will take for US media to report on the Tour de France. Putin's Panzers on the pitch during the Super Bowl is about what it would take for SB to get much coverage in European media.

 

[Orionblamblam]

As far as I'm concerned, cricket's tea break is an example of civilization in sports.

No, it's an example of taking something hideously boring - cricket - and making it even *more* boring. There's more to being "civilized" than being "mind numbing."

What cricket needs is robots and explosives.

Maybe that's what it will take for US media to report on the Tour de France.

Skinny Europeans in bad clothes on childrens toys being run over by T-90's? Yeah, I think even MSNBC might break away from their coverage of Just How Awesome Is The One Today for a few minutes for that...

 

[Arjen]

What cricket needs is robots and explosives.

A novel take on 'civilized'.

I've already hinted at my own lack of interest in the Tour de France so...

Skinny Europeans in bad clothes on childrens toys

...is preaching to the converted anyway.

 

[GTX]

It could be worse...one could be forced to watch some of those isolated, essentially one country 'sports' in that cultural backwater known as the USA...

 

[SOC]

Maybe that's what it will take for US media to report on the Tour de France.

They're moving the Tour de France to Sevastopol?

It could be worse...one could be forced to watch some of those isolated, essentially one country 'sports' in that cultural backwater known as the USA...

Quiet, you. At least OUR football isn't played by actors engaging in one-man expositions simulating injury any time there's a light breeze. We're considerate enough to restrict that kind of crap to the big screen!

 

[Arjen]

Quiet, you. At least OUR football isn't played by actors engaging in one-man expositions simulating injury any time there's a light breeze. We're considerate enough to restrict that kind of crap to the big screen!

Sports and fine acting combined in one event? What's not to like? With any luck, there's a singalong too! The lyrics can be off-putting, mind.

 

[Orionblamblam]

that cultural backwater known as the USA...

Sez the guy posting on the descendant of ARPAnet, who will in the next few days probably watch American TV programs, catch an American movie (perhaps on a PC or a Mac), listen to Americans sing American rap or American rock (possibly on an Ipod), wear blue jeans and sneakers, use Google to look something up, order something from Amazon, buy something on eBay and have some Starbucks, McDonalds and Coke, all while not being forced to speak German, present papers, worship the emperor, quote from the Little Red Book or pay tribute to the Politburo...

Yeah. *AMERICA* is the cultural backwater.