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from the just-stay-horizontal-and-wear-tight-spandex dept.
New research brings more bad news to astronauts thinking about long-haul space flights as spinal muscles shrink after months in space, scientists have found.
Floating around in space in an environment with little or no gravity is not good for the human body. Along with decreased bone density, nausea, a puffy face, possible cognitive deterioration, an astronaut's back starts to weaken too.
The research is part of NASA's wider project to study the physical effects space has on the body to prepare for long-haul flights to Mars.
Results from the NASA-funded research have been published in Spine, and show spinal damage persists months after the astronauts return to Earth.
Six NASA crew members were subjected to MRI scans before and after spending four to seven months floating around the microgravity conditions of the International Space Station.
NASA should send the astronauts into space with one of those inversion tables so they can hang upside down.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:26PM
Few if any stories have gone in depth on the changes the human body will undergo in different environments. But, when man moves off of the earth, he WILL adapt. Arguably, mankind's greatest talent is manipulating his environment, but we don't have the tools or the knowledge to do a lot of manipulating out there. So, man will adap, or he will die. Or, he may adpat, and die anyway - sometimes the dragon wins, after all.
Spacers will diverge from planet bound men. That is to be expected. Given a few generations in microgravity, it's possible that spacers simply wouldn't survive a planetary landing. But, who would give up flying for walking, anyway?
Of course, gravitational drives and gravity fields are probably on the horizon anyway. There won't be generations of humans living in microgravity if we get gravity fields. Or, more likely, only the poor will live in microgravity, while they perform the drudge work required by those people who can afford gravity fields.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @12:13AM
You're really not too adept at that whole "adapt" thing, are you?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 28 2016, @06:36AM
*groan*
To make matters worse, I commented on a spam site with terrible spelling and grammar recently.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday October 28 2016, @02:31AM
Here's one. [soylentnews.org]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 28 2016, @06:31AM
Aye, I thought that was a pretty good story, you old story teller! ;^)