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posted by martyb on Monday August 01 2016, @02:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the which-ones-brought-their-towels? dept.

Apollo astronauts who have ventured out of the protective magnetosphere of mother Earth appear to be dying of cardiovascular disease at a far higher rate than their counterparts—both those that have stayed grounded and those that only flew in the shielding embrace of low-Earth orbit. Though the data is slim—based on only 77 astronauts total—researchers speculate that potent ionizing radiation in deep space may be to blame. That hypothesis was backed up in follow-up mouse studies that provided evidence that similar radiation exposure led to long-lasting damage to the rodents’ blood vessels. All of the data was published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

[...] In the new study, [Michael] Delp [at Florida State University] and coauthors compared health data on 42 astronauts that had traveled into space—seven of which got past the magnetosphere and to the Moon—to the medical records of 35 astronauts that were grounded for their careers. The death rate from cardiovascular disease among the Apollo lunar astronauts was a whopping 43 percent, which is around four to five times the rate seen in the non-fliers and low-fliers (nine and 11 percent, respectively).

To figure out if deep-space ionizing radiation or, perhaps, weightlessness might explain the apparent jump in cardiovascular disease deaths, the researchers turned to a mouse model. Mice were either exposed to a single dose of radiation, had their hind limbs elevated to prevent weight-bearing for two weeks, or received both treatments. The researchers then let the faux-astronaut mice recover for six to seven months, which in human terms would be about 20 years.

[Continues...]

The researchers found that the mice exposed to radiation, or both radiation and simulated weightlessness, had sustained damage to their blood vessels. Namely, the mice had impaired vasodilation, or problems expanding their blood vessels to adjust for blood pressure. This can be a precursor to heart attacks and stroke. The mice that just experience simulated weightlessness, on the other hand, seemed normal.

While the rodent data complement the findings in real astronauts, the authors were clear about the limitations of the study. “Caution must be used in drawing definitive conclusions regarding specific health risks,” they concluded. The astronaut numbers are very small for an epidemiological study, there may be other factors in the space environment that could explain the possible health effects, and the type of radiation given to the mice wasn’t exactly the same as the type astronauts experience.

Delp and his colleagues are working with NASA on follow-up studies of astronauts’ health.

-- submitted from IRC

That seems to be a very small sample from which to draw any kind of conclusion, but it does suggest that outer space may be more hazardous that we thought. How will/should this affect future manned (personed?) space flight plans? With SpaceX planning to create a Mars Colonization Transport ship, maybe they would launch a hundred or so mice on a trip around the moon for their own edification?

Other coverage:
University Herald
The Guardian .


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 01 2016, @04:33PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday August 01 2016, @04:33PM (#382671) Journal

    We know some of the technologies that are coming or may be coming that would lower the cost of human space exploration:

    • Small-scale fusion, such as Lockheed Martin's attempt to put a 100 MW reactor within the volume of a shipping container, or more importantly smaller systems that could fit on a plane or spacecraft. Having 10+ MW available on your spacecraft means a lot of power available for active shielding and propulsion.
    • Fusion rockets which propel small amounts of material at high speed, an alternative to ion drives which could cut travel time to Mars by month.
    • Reusable rockets, which have reached a new milestone with SpaceX's testing of a previously flown rocket.
    • The Skylon spaceplane with SABRE engine and similar concepts, which could potentially do a lot better than rockets at transporting small amounts of cargo to orbit at a very low $/kg cost.
    • Emdrive, a complete black swan technology that will either be discarded as impossible or replace ion drives if proven to work. Don't count on it to work, but at least watch until NASA scientists are done investigating it.
    • I'll go ahead and list the space elevator, even though I'm not optimistic about the technology.

    Along with big developments, every aspect of the technology needed will get cheaper and better: solar panels, robots needed to construct habitats, drilling technologies (ask me to find the link for this one). Even computers will continue to get better for at least a couple of decades if we can manage to scale CPUs vertically.

    There may be a "space bubble", but if asteroid mining succeeds and can deliver some value to people not leaving Earth, there will be a boom. Sustainable living is also important, because if you can have a colony on an inhospitable rock like Mars that is self-sufficient and doesn't require significant resupply from Earth, then you only need to cover the initial costs to make it viable. Billionaires and governments are likely to start this movement, but if it costs just millions to fly enough robots and stuff to create a factory, living quarters, greenhouses, etc., others will be able to follow. It won't be a lot of humans, but it's the sustainability that is the point.

    I said "millions" because with the right planning and significant drops in shipping costs, it could be possible to construct a habitat on the Moon or Mars for less than a billion. It could require flying semi-autonomous robots years in advance on the cheapest flights possible, and significant use of local resources in order to construct buildings and tools. The food will already be growing before the human settlers land.

    In the short term (100 years) I expect human colonization on the Moon, Mars, Ceres, Callisto, and Enceladus. In the long term (200-500 years), I think we will put humans or at least robots on every solid thing in the solar system. Including smaller asteroids and TNOs/KBOs like Pluto, Sedna, 2015 RR245, etc. If there is a Neptune-like "Planet Nine" hiding in the outer solar system, that means even more satellites for us to land on.

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