13 ms·
On the devastating effects of a year in space
- baddox 9y agoI’m a little confused why only 48 hours after his return from space, he’s sleeping at home with his girlfriend and debating whether to take aspirin or go to the emergency room. I would have expected significant medical attention for much longer than 48 hours, given that this was the primary purpose for his extended stay on the ISS.
- simplicio 9y agoYea, especially given much of the purpose of his flight was to examine the effects of that long in space. I have trouble believing that NASA didn't, if nothing else, give him a phone # to call right away if he had any unexpected symptoms. The whole "should I go to the emergency room" thing kinda seems like a narrative added after the fact to add excitement to his article/book. (not that I doubt the episode was scary, but I do doubt the fact that NASA would've left any uncertainty about what to do in such a situation)
- neurotech1 9y agoThey have on-call flight surgeon(physicians) for the Astronaut Office. This includes post-mission support. The narrative seems like it was slightly dramatic to support the story. Similar "unusual" symptoms have occurred on previous missions with other astronauts. Also, being a senior astronaut, he is likely personal friends with at least one of the assigned flight surgeon.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoHe's probably picked up a heck of a lot of expertise on basic medical stuff over the years so he can almost be his own CNA. They probably decided that having him at home in a normal environment with a fitbit or something logging his heart rate and whatnot was better than having him in an unfamiliar hospital.
- neurotech1 9y agoAstronauts are qualified as EMT as part of their astronaut training.
- markatkinson 9y agoFunny I thought the same thing. Or even an in house doctor for check ups and assistance.
- coleca 9y agoSo it sounds like even NASA astronauts even have a crappy healthcare plan like the rest of us.
- astrodust 9y agoMany countries have universal healthcare, but the US has universally bad healthcare.
- gozur88 9y agoI know you're making a joke, but what you're saying is not at all true. Most people in the US have quite good healthcare. That's why it's so hard to change anything.
- joering2 9y agoSay what? I cannot find a single friend or family member who wouldn't be complaining at the healthcare; and those who are healthy just complain how high deductibles are in case they got sick. Have you ever been to Europe? Some west-block countries like Germany? Same wait time for private sector only at the 10% cost surgeries, xrays you name it, with the same equipment that USA is using in most cases.
- astrodust 9y agoI've had relatives that have had quadruple bypass surgery here (Canada) and had to fill out more paperwork when applying for a library card than when checking out of the hospital. I've also had American relatives that could not, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how many times they called, begged and peaded with their insurance company, to get the treatment they desperately needed. It's like those companies would prefer to drag out the process until you're dead than pay out a nickel.
- bigiain 9y agoOn the other hand, if they'd tried to check _me_ into hospital, Id be all "Where do I sign, I'm checking myself out. I'm going to dinner and bed with my girlfriend who I haven't seen for a year!!!" (Which is only _one_ of the reasons I didn't get to be an astronaut... ;-) )
- gozur88 9y agoI would have thought even if they're not treating symptoms they'd want to know things like blood pressure and blood chemistry change over time. Like, "We're going to keep drawing blood every hour until things look to be long-term stable."
- markbnj 9y agoCame here to say this as well. You'd think he would have a number to call, or something, and ten minutes later there's medical attention coming down like a waterfall.
- njharman 9y agoThe man just gave a year of his life. I expect NASA has a strong fairness and mental health reasons to reunite him with his family and loved ones as quickly as possible. Allowing him to spend his 3rd night back on earth at home seems like a small price for science to pay.
- baddox 9y agoUnless of course he had a medical emergency, which this sounded pretty close to.
- davidbanham 9y agoFor sure, with the added instruction "Hey dude if your legs blow up like balloons and you come out in a weird rash call this number, k?"
- mathattack 9y agoThat was my first reaction as well. Monitor and keep him near the experts.
- ilamont 9y agoBased on the experience of cosmonauts who spent long periods of time on various Mir missions in the 1980s and 1990s, what is the long-term impact of staying in zero-gravity space for so long? If they lost bone mass, the walls of their hearts became thinner, and they received the equivalent of 10 chest X-rays daily over hundreds of days in space, are they experiencing debilitating effects 20 or 30 years later?
- martyvis 9y agoGiven that lack of gravity seems to be a major risk factor for well-being I'm surprised a static structure like the ISS doesn't yet have a rotating centrifuge-like structure ala 2001: A Space Oddysey to at least ward off the effects during sleep and downtime
- thatswrong0 9y agoWell they do have those tied-down-with-a-spring treadmills, but that only covers you for the duration of your workout. I don’t know anything about constructing things for use in a space station, but I can’t imagine creating such a rotating structure would be easy, cheap, or safe.. a problem with a structure rotating quickly in space could quickly cause major safety issues for the ISS I’d imagine.
- baddox 9y agoResistance training is certainly still possible, but you still lose the normal ambient resistance you get on earth just from walking around and holding your limbs in place against gravity. The difference between low-gravity and someone on Earth who doesn’t exercise much is probably much larger than the difference between a non-exercising Earthling and an Earthling who exercises. Besides, that doesn’t really work for the other physiological effects of low gravity, like the heart and circulation issues mentioned in the article.
- thatswrong0 9y agoGreat point about the treadmill. I guess my point is that I just can’t imagine that all the brilliant people involved with the ISS _didn’t_ think of a rotating structure.. but even just getting a sizable non-rotating structure cost 150B. I wonder what kind of health issues we’d see even with a rotating structure tho. Would living on such a structure really help prevent most of these issues?
- simplicio 9y agoInteresting start to the article, but kind of annoyed I read to the end to find its basically a teaser for Kelly's book, and the stuff about his health problems etc. is never followed up on. Wish they'd at least put that at the top of the article.
- devb 9y agoIt worked on me, I'm looking forward to buying the book. Is this the first time you've come across an excerpt teaser on the internet?
- jessriedel 9y agoIt's basically just clickbait on a different scale. Clickbait doesn't stop being annoying just because it's common.
- abrowne 9y agoIt's a long enough article for me. I feel satisfied reading it without now needing to read the book.
- QAPereo 9y ago...And this is why Mars for colonists is still very much a turgid fantasy. We need to dream less, and commit more to the hard and expensive org of solving these problems. Step 1: stop stripping NASA down to bare metal. Here’s some possible insight into the impact of radiation on their brains: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-damage-astronauts-brains http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-d... this is in addition to bones, muscles, eyes, etc. Edit: the prevalence of downvotes and the lack of a coherent argument is painfully telling. Remember that you have to get to Mars as well. Edit re product50: Can’t do this one very specific thing, for good reasons, and only for now. Hint! If your magic trick requires that all of the skeptics leave the room, it’s not magic, it’s a con.
- jack9 9y agoThere's a strong sentiment that anything anti-mars-enthusiasm hurts humanity more than helps. There's absolutely nothing to support this idea, other than some misplaced notion of hope in the face of nihilism of our terrestrial problems. In proper pragmatic context, if we can't colonize the moon, sending people to Mars is a massive waste and overly dangerous. Nobody wants to admit to that, because movie fantasy has somehow reinforced this mystical goal in some form of misplaced nationalist sentiment about America-fuck-yeah (as far as I can tell).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- product50 9y agoYeah - so instead let us not do anything and spend our time commenting on random threads how bad the idea is. You realize that at every cusp of a major technological breakthrough, there were 100s of people like you saying how terrible the idea was? You are getting downvoted for your pessimistic and can't do attitude than anything else.
- danso 9y agoWell of course we don't track very well all the major ambitions that failed because of undue optimism.
- larkeith 9y agoIt should be noted that, in Mars' reduced gravity, it can be presumed the symptoms would be lessened. Still a major concern, however.
- craftyguy 9y agoI don't think the concern is about gravitational conditions once you're on Mars, but the long trip to and from Mars (18 months each way, best case with current technology). Edit: I was wrongly thinking 18mo each way when it's closer to 18mo-ish round trip. Sorry internet armchair soldiers.
- theothermkn 9y agoIt is most emphatically not 18 months each way. 8.5 months or so on a Hohmann transfer, the longest low-energy direct transfer.
- craftyguy 9y agoYes, you are right. I goofed up.
- product50 9y agoWhere are you reading this? It is seven months each way as per the following: https://www.mars-one.com/faq/mission-to-mars/how-long-does-it-take-to-travel-to-mars https://www.mars-one.com/faq/mission-to-mars/how-long-does-i...
- craftyguy 9y agoYes, you are right. I goofed up.
- haeffin 9y ago> Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, at 15:02 UTC aboard the MSL spacecraft and landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17 UTC. You sure it's not 18 months total?
- jpatokal 9y ago> But very little is known about what occurs after month six. The symptoms may get precipitously worse in the ninth month, for instance, or they may level off. We don't know, and there is only one way to find out. Actually, there's a second way: call Valery Polyakov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Polyakov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Polyakov Or a whole bunch of other Mir veterans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Avdeyev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Avdeyev
- gwern 9y agoProbably not all the relevant data would've been recorded, and as far as Kelly goes, it's not every day that you have an identical twin to serve as the control!
- rbanffy 9y agoStill, the conditions he described at the end of the article would sure be present. I remember a Mir astronaut that couldn't sleep with anything heavier than the lighhtest blanket.
- FierceLog 9y agoUse it or lose it applies to the human body. And they're stumped? Wow.
- _ph_ 9y agoThis is why people like Scott Kelly should be considered heroes. They are pushing our knowledge about manned spaceflight, and doing to at considerable personal risk and effort. But as a result, we are getting more knowledgeable about the problems, and hopefully solution approaches. That stays on the ISS of 6 months or even a year are somewhat a routine is quite an achievement. And we might find out, how to do even longer stays in zero gravity. With these results we then can set mission limits for a potential Mars mission. Of course one obvious solution would be to fly faster. Musk hinted at his BFR presentations of a 3 month flight time which would be less than the routine stays on the ISS.
- agumonkey 9y agoI still wonder if Musk considered effect of months in space on the average person.
- crush-n-spread 9y agoMusk knows that it is not the ideal environment for human health. But Musk also knows that the rate-limiting step is not human health in space, but the cost of getting to space. We can not move forward in making a healthy environment for humans in space if we're not putting hundreds of ambitious, fearless humans in space at low cost per human.
- everyone 9y agoAstronauts always seem to be these clean-cut godfearing family-men types. Maybe antisocial misanthropic weirdos would be better suited. From a psychological perspective. They wouldnt miss family/friends, and might enjoy living on spacefood.
- lojack 9y agoThe military generally wants soldiers to have families because it gives them more of a will to survive. I imagine NASA wants similar things for their astronauts.
- njharman 9y agoAll the Air Force and Navy pilot ones are. The officer corps in both is extremely conservative and traditional. To the point that if you're not married you have difficult time rising to the mid/upper ranks.
- RSchaeffer 9y agoPeter Watts has an interesting take on this in his book Starfish.
- scandox 9y agoI am a somewhat antisocial misanthropic weirdo: moody, inconsistent, sometimes very good, sometimes very bad. My brother is a brick: solid family man, consistent as hell, mountain climber, athlete, scared of absolutely nothing irrational. I'd send him into space a 1000 times before I'd send me.
- SCAQTony 9y agoThe first three paragraphs sound like he is a PTSD victim from a forgotten war. The next seven, like a nerve gas victim. With all this in mind. This si more than a red flag for space travel, more has to be done before we even consider establishing a base anywhere off-world. Till then, probes and asteroid mining seem more profitable, safe and mind expanding.
- chrismealy 9y agoPeople don't want to accept the truth about humans in space.
- OtterCoder 9y agoPeople don't care if their frontier is safe. The human drive to explore and stake out new lands has always been much stronger than their need for safety.
- SCAQTony 9y agoI so agree. It would be more worthwhile to terraform the Australian outback or Gobi desert and put a forest and settlers there than oxygenated domes on Mars. Not to say that space exploration should never be an agenda, but rather we select projects that have a national or scientific ROI with little to no harm caused to any individual.
- rbanffy 9y agoA lot of this seems gravity-related. The answer is relatively simple: if we are going to Mars, use a rotating spaceship (or one with an internal centrifugr). The SLS Block 1B can carry rigid cargo that's up to 10m wide and the BFR seems to be able to carry up to 9. That's enough for an internal centrifuge astronauts could spend lots of time in, only moving to the zero-g areas out of it when needed. If we think about inflatable modules, the space becomes even larger. I wonder if a centrifuge could be added to the ISS or if the vibration would be too much of a problem.
- chrismealy 9y agoThe space station is just in low earth orbit. Radiation is a lot worse in real space.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- True-Saber 9y agoThe only thing I hear in articles like this is that our space programs are pitifully underfunded, and we'll probably be going to the stars in rotating ships...shit we knew 20 years ago.