"John Doe" wrote in message
news:1108365776.18e20a69e1db16349c012f94e475895f@t eranews...
For a trip the duration of the Mars expedition, does it make a
difference ? Woudldn't they need to find way to deal with calcium loss
even for men ? And if they do find a way to stabilize calcium level on
men, wouldn't that also work for women with just different dosage of
whatever they do ?

THe Russians have a "penguin suit"- would the placement of weights in and
around the suit help, similar to the use of weights while power walking?
While it wouldn't eliminate the need for exercise, it should provide some
benefit, and the weights could be removed when they would cause problems. A
constant small stress has got to provide some benefit.
This isn't Star Trek. You can't ignore toilets and sexual issues, and
you can't garantee that all crew members will get along wonderfully and
constantly sport smiles and never complain about workload or food for
1.5 years in closed quarters. There are issues and they need to be dealt
with.

Examine the use of women on US naval vessels. We have a case where women
were introduced into a formerly all-male environment, and an environment
requiring extended periods of confinement. This should certainly provide
some insights.