I don't know. I suspect they are proportionately as well as absolutely better at carrying large loads at slow speeds than we are; momentum is in our favour as we're on two legs.
But I do know there's a guy currently training to run the London Marathon with a refrigerator (OK a British one, but a refrigerator) on his back.
Or carrying them up a flight of stairs on your back. I think peak power is more important than work here. The peak power to throw someone 3 metres into the air is ludicrous, but arresting a fall over a (slightly) longer time period, with bones and ligaments taking the peak power instead of muscles are what is going on.
When you get above a few kilograms there's also a biomechanical issue - the same reason the world record for clean and jerk is much higher than the world record for bicep curls, despite moving the weight a lot further.
Lifting something from waist height to chin height quickly, using big leg muscles to give it momentum, is easier than lifting it slowly using only arm muscles.
And nobody lifting 10kg trash bags for 8 hours a day is doing it the difficult way :)
> Still, 35lb or so of pulling effort to activate the handle. It's like trying to drag a 4yo kid with both hands, except the handle is much thinner.
The negative g's are doing the pulling in this case though, all the passenger had to do is hang on. At -0.5 g a 160lb person will be "pulling" with 80lbs of force just by grabbing onto something.
I think this is an amazing and inevitable outcome. However, sort of disappointed by the 60 kilo max. I feel like these suits need to be an ordwr of magnitude better than humans to be viable. There are certainly people who can lift 125lb objects. I understand that fatigue and uniformity factor in, but it will be great to see 300lb+ suits
Alot of loads they carry can become completely impossible for human physiology to carry by having to extend any weight too far from your body. Or pieces of material that weigh above 150kg. No safety intstruction can prevent guys from hoisting that up on their own if it needs to be done in order to continue working. That in addition to lots of chemicals, sprays, fiberglass and dust in the air makes it a health nightmare.
I'm surprised that these loads are carried on the body. Surely with 50+ Kg soldiers cannot climb walls or jump over trenches, so why not use something like a Chinese wheelbarrow, which would work even on narrow, bumpy paths? They could provide some cover as well.
It's just not possible for soft 70kg humans to safely be near hard 2000kg objects moving quickly.
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