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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @07:27AM
If I recall, the last discussion on the subject came to the conclusion that the size necessary was somewhere between half a mile and a mile.
Easy[1] solution: Launch three aircraft carriers, weld them together end to end, and set the whole thing in motion. Then only use the tiny portions at the ends, rather than the entire length of the resulting structure.
[1] Calibrate sarcasm detector here.