In the coming decade, in 2033, NASA and China intend to send astronauts to Mars for the first time in history. This poses a number of challenges, from logistical and technical issues to ensuring that astronauts deal with waste and have enough food and water for the months-long transit to and from Mars. But of course there is also the health and safety of the astronauts who will spend months traveling in space where they will be exposed to cosmic radiation and microgravity. There are even concerns that after months of exposure to microgravity, astronauts will have trouble adapting to the gravity of Mars.
To see if these concerns are justified, a team of space medicine experts from the Australian National University (ANU) developed a mathematical model to predict whether astronauts can safely travel to Mars and carry out their duties once they arrive on the Red Planet.This model could be extremely valuable along with all the other preparations that must take place before astronauts step onto Mars. It could also be used to assess the impact of short- and long-duration missions that will take astronauts far beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system in the future.
The research team was led by Dr. Lex van Loon, research fellow at the ANU College of Health and Medicine (CHM). As he and his colleagues note in their study, the potential risks for Mars-bound missions are numerous, but the biggest threat is likely the time astronauts spend in microgravity. Combined with harmful radiation from the Sun and cosmic sources, this experience causes profound changes in their bodies. Based on extensive research conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS), microgravity is known to cause loss of muscle and bone density and affect organ function, vision, and the cardiopulmonary system the heart and its ability to pump blood through the body’s arterial system. and veins.
As Van Loon described in an ANU press release, their research is essential not only for proposed missions to Mars, but also for the emerging commercial space sector. “We know that it takes about six to seven months to go to Mars, and that could cause a change in the structure of your blood vessels or the strength of your heart due to the weightlessness that results from zero-gravity space travel.
With the rise of commercial spaceflight agencies such as Space X and Blue Origin, there is more room for rich but not necessarily healthy people to go into space, so we want to use mathematical models to predict whether someone is fit to fly to Mars .”Co-author Dr Emma Tucker, an astrophysicist and emergency medicine registrar, added that long-term exposure to zero gravity could cause the heart to become sluggish because it doesn’t have to work as hard to overcome gravity and pump blood throughout the body.
“When you’re on Earth, gravity pulls fluid into the lower half of our body, which is why some people’s legs start to swell towards the end of the day. But when you get to space, the gravitational pull goes away, which means the fluid moves to the upper half of your body, and that triggers a reaction that tricks the body into thinking there’s too much fluid. As a result, you start going to the bathroom a lot, you start getting rid of excess fluids, you’re not thirsty and you don’t drink as much, which means you’re dehydrating in space.”
This, Tucker says, is why astronauts returning from the ISS pass out when they re-enter Earth or need to be transported in wheelchairs. The longer they stay in space, the more likely they are to collapse upon return to Earth, and the more difficult the process of readjusting to Earth’s gravity. In the case of the NASA Twins Study, Mark Kelly spent over a year in orbit and experienced excruciating pain, swelling, and other symptoms after returning.
When it comes to Mars-bound missions, there is another complication caused by the communication delay between Earth and Mars. Depending on the orientation of the Sun, Earth, and Mars, these delays can last up to 20 minutes, meaning astronauts must be able to perform their duties without the immediate assistance of mission control or support crews (which includes medical emergencies).
As Van Loon explained:
“If an astronaut passes out when they first get off the spacecraft, or if there is a medical emergency, there will be no one on Mars to help them.”This is why we have to be absolutely sure that the astronaut is able to fly and can adapt to the gravitational field of Mars.During those crucial first few minutes, they must be able to function effectively and efficiently with minimal support.” Their model relies on a machine learning algorithm based on astronaut data collected from past expeditions aboard the ISS and the Apollo missions to simulate the risks associated with traveling to Mars.
Testing has shown that it can simulate key cardiovascular hemodynamic changes after extended spaceflight and under varying conditions of gravity and fluid loading. And the results are encouraging because they suggest that astronauts can function after spending months in microgravity. While the current model is based on data derived from middle-aged and well-trained astronauts, the researchers hope to expand its capabilities with commercial spaceflight data.
Ultimately, their goal is to create a model that can simulate the impact of long-term space travel on relatively unhealthy individuals with pre-existing heart disease (in other words, untrained civilians). They hope the model will provide a more complete picture of what would happen if an “everyday” person traveled into space. Further improvements could be made to include age-related health issues, which would make sense given the number of celebrities who have recently flown into space (Wally Funk, William Shatner, Laura Shepard, Richard Branson, etc.)Who knows? Hopefully it will be possible to simulate the effects of long-term effects of microgravity on children and fetal development. This research is essential if we ever want to send humans to the moon, Mars and other destinations to live there someday.
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