Chengda Xu
Erika Harnett
ESS 102
April 9, 2018
Health Problems Caused by Long Term Spaceflight and Possible Solutions
During recent years, humans spent lots of money and time on space travel and we can go increasingly further and stay much longer time in space. However, there are still many problems which keeps us from going further and health problem is one of the most significant one of them. Humans have been evolving for millions of years to adapt to the physical conditions of Earth surface, so when some of them enter the space, the weightless environment would result in many changes in various physiological systems and health problems, including loss of muscle mass, bone microfracture, fluid redistribution and a reduction to immune system effectiveness.
The first problem caused by weightless environment is great loss of muscle mass. On Earth, we constantly use certain muscles, which are called antigravity muscles, to support our bodies against the gravity. However, in the space where there is little or no gravity, we no longer keep using these muscles. As a result, these muscles would atrophy or, in other words, start to get smaller and weaker. According to the research of NASA (2013), astronauts without …show more content…
Our bones are constantly being removed and regenerated by osteoclasts and osteoblasts. (Rodan, 1998) On Earth, this process is well balanced but when we enter the space, that is a totally different story. In the weightless environment, the activity of osteoclasts increases, which means they break down the bones at a higher rate. At the meantime, osteoblasts which regenerate the bones are not consecutively active. Consequently, out bones keep diminishing without recovery (Blaber, 2013) A NASA research (2001) suggests that astronauts lose approximately 1.5% of bone tissues per month. Worse still, lost bone converts to calcium and flows into blood, which may calcify of soft tissues and cause kidney stone
Erika Harnett
ESS 102
April 9, 2018
Health Problems Caused by Long Term Spaceflight and Possible Solutions
During recent years, humans spent lots of money and time on space travel and we can go increasingly further and stay much longer time in space. However, there are still many problems which keeps us from going further and health problem is one of the most significant one of them. Humans have been evolving for millions of years to adapt to the physical conditions of Earth surface, so when some of them enter the space, the weightless environment would result in many changes in various physiological systems and health problems, including loss of muscle mass, bone microfracture, fluid redistribution and a reduction to immune system effectiveness.
The first problem caused by weightless environment is great loss of muscle mass. On Earth, we constantly use certain muscles, which are called antigravity muscles, to support our bodies against the gravity. However, in the space where there is little or no gravity, we no longer keep using these muscles. As a result, these muscles would atrophy or, in other words, start to get smaller and weaker. According to the research of NASA (2013), astronauts without …show more content…
Our bones are constantly being removed and regenerated by osteoclasts and osteoblasts. (Rodan, 1998) On Earth, this process is well balanced but when we enter the space, that is a totally different story. In the weightless environment, the activity of osteoclasts increases, which means they break down the bones at a higher rate. At the meantime, osteoblasts which regenerate the bones are not consecutively active. Consequently, out bones keep diminishing without recovery (Blaber, 2013) A NASA research (2001) suggests that astronauts lose approximately 1.5% of bone tissues per month. Worse still, lost bone converts to calcium and flows into blood, which may calcify of soft tissues and cause kidney stone