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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.
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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.
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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 .
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 01 2016, @08:20PM
Well, for the Moon in particular, putting the majority of your buildings underground could solve the problem. That could have its own challenges, obviously. Redundant life support systems will be a must, so that if one surface building gets the window blown out, there is somewhere to retreat to. Maybe even have the lunar dwellers sleep separately.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday August 01 2016, @08:45PM
putting the majority of your buildings underground could solve the problem.
That seems to be a given for dealing with thermal issues and radiation. A couple feet of rock is incredibly expensive as a spacecraft shell because its really heavy, but once you're on the ground its just a couple hours of robotic bulldozer work.
Personally I like the idea of robotic rock processing as one of the first things sent up. That way you can crush and sieve rock for minerals but crucially you can sieve for a specific range of sand size and engineer the modules to tolerate being buried in standard size synthetic sand rather than any old lumps a bulldozer pushes around.
And you need a bucket to hold the sand, so obviously you build base components in a crater, then bulldoze sand on top to fill the crater. Digging thru solid rock moon bedrock will take a while industrially speaking, and just using sand piles will result in more material use than relying on crater walls. Or you could manufacture walls onsite very crudely by sintering dust into wall blocks.
Either way I think a major very early colonization project will be precision robotic manufactured synthetic lunar sands for thermal and radiation shielding. A whole quarry would be very handy as there's going to be low spots to fill in, road surfaces to improve, etc. Even if its mostly robotic heavy trucks trundling around the roads instead of humans, they'll still need the roads... The geologists would find a lunar quarry very fascinating. I would imagine great arguments between the engineers who want to expand into consistent strata whereas the geologists want to dig up interesting stuff that might not be the best building material.
Obviously failure of sand is going to lead to interesting building problems. Sand contaminated with dust or heavy rocks could be a bit of a problem for the residents.