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It's a real issue in space: > Because space travel makes astronauts prone to kidney stones due, in part to bone demineralization from weightlessness, they are

It's a real issue in space: > Because space travel makes astronauts prone to kidney stones due, in part to bone demineralization from weightlessness, they are at increased risk. The NASA evidence base and publications note that astronauts have had more than 30 instances of kidney stones within two years of space travel. Medical assistance is a formidable challenge for those orbiting this planet or heading to other solar system destinations. https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/keeping-kidney-stones-bay-during-space-flights https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/keeping-kidney-stones-bay-durin...

Andrex 3y ago
I'm not even sure a free trip to space would be worth a kidney stone, personally.
- bastardoperator 3y ago
  Yeah, hard pass for me, no pun intended.
  - sabellito 3y ago
    The pun was very good though, you should've intended it.
  - TrevorJ 3y ago
    Best pun I have heard in ages.
    - malfist 3y ago
      I thought it had... crystalized
- throwanem 3y ago
  I mean if it was only blocking a ureter for ten minutes tops, then sure? Compared to what hydronephrosis feels like, merely voiding one isn't so much of a much, really.
  - Firmwarrior 3y ago
    Haha, wow, what a fun discovery Personally, I don't even like roller coasters.. I'd probably take a kidney stone to avoid having to go to space I'm sure I'll end up there sooner or later though, that's where all the jobs are going to be
  - jwestbury 3y ago
    Chronic stone former here, and I can confirm this. That said, I did have a stone large enough to get stuck in the urethra -- not the ureter. The doctor was quite impressed. Unfortunately, I passed it in a public toilet shortly after leaving the doctor, so I wasn't able to capture and measure it. At any rate, hydronephrosis is the real thing to fear in most cases.
bilsbie 3y ago
We really should be working on artificial gravity via spinning. It solves so many issues. I know smaller craft can’t do this but we can always do a long tether with a counterweight. (My personal pet idea is to go for super low gravity like .05G to start out to simplify things. You still get to walk around, go to the bathroom, spill liquids and clean up, cook, etc. )
- _Microft 3y ago
  We have years of experience with both short and long-term missions in zero or micro gravity but we know a lot less about how low gravity affects the human body. We can hope that it is beneficial but what we actually need is a way to study it.
  - simcop2387 3y ago
    And there's a very good chance that what we do know about zero/microgravity will still be beneficial with low gravity too. Definitely a reason to work on this even if we do ultimately wait until we have some kind of low gravity solution too.
- Lord-Jobo 3y ago
  https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/artificial-gravity/ https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/arti... This podcast covers a lot of the status on international studies for artificial gravity. "Now we did try to fly a centrifuge on station around 2009 or 2010. And again, it was the same international community and we put together an international proposal to do it on station. And it turns out after a lot of hemming and hawing and the U.S. was going to provide the crew and the integration, the Japanese were going to fly it and the Europeans were going to pay for the device and have it built, and flight certified. It turns out that the station really isn’t designed for that much vibration. So instead of just having a person laying there, we were going to have a person with a cycle ergometer that would spin and do the ergometer. And that much vibration was bad for the station and it was decided that you would have to have a very expensive vibration isolation system that the Europeans weren’t willing to pay for to be able to do it. So, we kind of lost the possibility of doing human centrifuge work on station at this time." So it looks like this is the current issue, and there is a large amount of work going into the physiological side of research to find out exactly what amounts and methods of artificial gravity achieve desired results.
bscphil 3y ago
> The NASA evidence base and publications note that astronauts have had more than 30 instances of kidney stones within two years of space travel. What does this mean? Surely the average astronaut doesn't pass 30 kidney stones every two years, that's more than one a month. So it's either over a specific two year period (for every astronaut in space at the time, probably a lot?) or it's for a specific number of astronauts. Confusing sentence.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  I think they mean there have been 30 reported cases of an astronaut getting a kidney stone less than 2 years after their latest space flight. Given that astronauts are exceptionally physically fit individuals to start with, at least at the time of their space missions, this is probably quite significant evidence that space flight causes kidney stones.

Andrex 3y ago

I'm not even sure a free trip to space would be worth a kidney stone, personally.

bastardoperator 3y ago
Yeah, hard pass for me, no pun intended.
- sabellito 3y ago
  The pun was very good though, you should've intended it.
- TrevorJ 3y ago
  Best pun I have heard in ages.
  - malfist 3y ago
    I thought it had... crystalized
throwanem 3y ago
I mean if it was only blocking a ureter for ten minutes tops, then sure? Compared to what hydronephrosis feels like, merely voiding one isn't so much of a much, really.
- Firmwarrior 3y ago
  Haha, wow, what a fun discovery Personally, I don't even like roller coasters.. I'd probably take a kidney stone to avoid having to go to space I'm sure I'll end up there sooner or later though, that's where all the jobs are going to be
- jwestbury 3y ago
  Chronic stone former here, and I can confirm this. That said, I did have a stone large enough to get stuck in the urethra -- not the ureter. The doctor was quite impressed. Unfortunately, I passed it in a public toilet shortly after leaving the doctor, so I wasn't able to capture and measure it. At any rate, hydronephrosis is the real thing to fear in most cases.

bilsbie 3y ago

We really should be working on artificial gravity via spinning. It solves so many issues. I know smaller craft can’t do this but we can always do a long tether with a counterweight. (My personal pet idea is to go for super low gravity like .05G to start out to simplify things. You still get to walk around, go to the bathroom, spill liquids and clean up, cook, etc. )

_Microft 3y ago
We have years of experience with both short and long-term missions in zero or micro gravity but we know a lot less about how low gravity affects the human body. We can hope that it is beneficial but what we actually need is a way to study it.
- simcop2387 3y ago
  And there's a very good chance that what we do know about zero/microgravity will still be beneficial with low gravity too. Definitely a reason to work on this even if we do ultimately wait until we have some kind of low gravity solution too.
Lord-Jobo 3y ago
https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/artificial-gravity/ https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/arti... This podcast covers a lot of the status on international studies for artificial gravity. "Now we did try to fly a centrifuge on station around 2009 or 2010. And again, it was the same international community and we put together an international proposal to do it on station. And it turns out after a lot of hemming and hawing and the U.S. was going to provide the crew and the integration, the Japanese were going to fly it and the Europeans were going to pay for the device and have it built, and flight certified. It turns out that the station really isn’t designed for that much vibration. So instead of just having a person laying there, we were going to have a person with a cycle ergometer that would spin and do the ergometer. And that much vibration was bad for the station and it was decided that you would have to have a very expensive vibration isolation system that the Europeans weren’t willing to pay for to be able to do it. So, we kind of lost the possibility of doing human centrifuge work on station at this time." So it looks like this is the current issue, and there is a large amount of work going into the physiological side of research to find out exactly what amounts and methods of artificial gravity achieve desired results.

bscphil 3y ago

> The NASA evidence base and publications note that astronauts have had more than 30 instances of kidney stones within two years of space travel. What does this mean? Surely the average astronaut doesn't pass 30 kidney stones every two years, that's more than one a month. So it's either over a specific two year period (for every astronaut in space at the time, probably a lot?) or it's for a specific number of astronauts. Confusing sentence.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tsimionescu 3y ago
I think they mean there have been 30 reported cases of an astronaut getting a kidney stone less than 2 years after their latest space flight. Given that astronauts are exceptionally physically fit individuals to start with, at least at the time of their space missions, this is probably quite significant evidence that space flight causes kidney stones.