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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: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Friday October 28 2016, @12:12AM
And the best bit is you probably don't need the full 9.8ms^-2 to lose most of the harmful effects of zero G.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday October 28 2016, @08:11AM
And the best bit is you probably don't need the full 9.8ms^-2 to lose most of the harmful effects of zero G.
An excellent point. Given that Mars gravity is ~0.4G (3.711 m/s2), probably something like 0.5 or 0.6G would be sufficient.
This would be important even if there weren't physiological issues to deal with, since humans will need to move around with significant extra mass (P-suits, carrying instruments, perhaps even some construction) on them.
In fact, even with 0.5 or 0.6G on the spacecraft, you'll probably want these folks doing exercise in a centrifuge as well, to maintain (or at least try to minimize loss of) muscle mass. This would probably be useful *on* Mars too.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @06:04PM
An excellent point. Given that Mars gravity is ~0.4G (3.711 m/s2), probably something like 0.5 or 0.6G would be sufficient.
Citation please? Any actual scientific evidence or studies showing that 0.6G would be sufficient? And what would the definition of "sufficient" be? e.g. normal healthy individuals could live indefinitely in that g and also return to Earth G without too much problems and recover to full after a month?
The last I checked this was cancelled: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Module [wikipedia.org]
So there's probably not much science being done in that area.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday October 28 2016, @06:32PM
Citation please?
I pretty much pulled it out of my ass, so go ahead and find a Goatse image and there's your citation.
Have a lovely day.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr