In space, no one can hear you shouting – but you may not be in the Sandra-Bullock position, and you may not be in the Aliens position. Space could hurt, even if you put science fiction aside.
Maybe the danger is real, not even outside – but inside. A new study has found that energy production structures in cells may be the reason astronauts face a health risk while in space.
Over the years astronauts have lost bone and muscle loss, and some have developed immune disorders or heart and liver issues – all of which may have been triggered by the same thing.
Frank Borman was probably the first person to make a barf in space. Borman was part of NASA’s Apollo 8 mission, which built a launch pad in Florida on December 21, 1968. Over the next six days, the mission made history as it orbited the moon and returned home. But Borman, who led the mission, became queasy near the beginning. “I threw up a couple of times,” he recalled in a 1999 interview
It wasn’t the only one: German threw Titov, the second man in orbit. “They didn’t know who they were dealing with. They first questioned whether it was stimulated by some nervous system response to fluid movement in the body. We later found out that was not true. But when you go into orbit, you change the rules. Mankind is largely smooth. Even if you’re not standing on the surface, the brain wants you to have one, “Chuck Oman, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. Air & Space Magazine in 2009.
Space sickness is not the only other side effect of leaving Earth. A 2015 report from NASA identified 30 factors that can make astronauts ill and incapable of doing their job. And maybe there’s more, he said. Until humans visit Mars it will be difficult to fully predict what could go wrong.
Some of the known dangers are not simple or minor: Along with space sickness, there is radiation – energy-packed subatomic particles that pass through the skin of an astronaut, damaging internal and external cells. Bones and muscles of space travelers can also weaken because these body parts do not always have to work against gravity. Blood and other fluids from the lower parts of the body can accumulate in the upper parts of the body, including around the brain. One side effect: Astronauts can suffer hearing loss.
The new study by a systems biologist, Afshin Beheshti, conducted by Dataf from NASA’s GeneLab, looked at proteins and RNAs in each sample. The team also examined blood and urine from 59 astronauts. Spaceflight seemed to have caused a lot of biochemical changes in them. One symptom: Space travelers were known to have more chemicals to stimulate inflammation. The researchers also found signs of oxidative stress, a type of cell damage. That damage can be the result of mitochondria not functioning properly.
Damage to mitochondria could be a common feature in spaceflight health risks, the team concluded, according to a recent report in Science News for Students.
Tesla CEO and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had been outlining his plans to take humans to Mars for a while – and finally he has a timeline for it. About Mars in particular, for the first time ever, Musk has announced a timeline to find humans on the red planet. “Five and a half years,” Musk told hosts Sriram Krishnan and Aarthi Ramamurthy at the start of the show, CNET reported.
Although that is not a hard date. Musk has recorded a number of records – there are a number of technological advances that need to be made in the intervening years.
Also read: Elon Musk’s Share Plan of Getting Man to Mars By 2026. That’s 7 years ahead of NASA