Skin-Tight Bodysuits Could Protect Astronauts From Bone Loss

jamie passes along a report about research from MIT's Man-Vehicle Laboratory into using "superhero-style" skinsuits to combat the effects of extended stays in microgravity on bone density in astronauts. (Abstract.) Quoting: "Astronauts lose 1 to 2 percent of their bone mass for each month they spend in space. As far back as the Gemini missions, conditioning exercise regimes have been used to slow the rate of bone loss, but a 2001-2004 NASA-sponsored study showed that crew members aboard the International Space Station were still losing up to 2.7 percent of their interior bone material and 1.7 percent of outer hipbone material for each month they spent in space. ... With stirrups that loop around the feet, the elastic gravity skinsuit is purposely cut too short for the astronaut so that it stretches when put on — pulling the wearer's shoulders towards the feet. In normal gravity conditions on Earth, a human's legs bear more weight than the torso. Because the suit's legs stretch more than the torso section, the wearer's legs are subjected to a greater force — replicating gravity effects on Earth." See? Seven of Nine's outfit was inspired by science after all.

Comments

Re:Wearing it to sleep

[Nadaka]

Or it could be that it isn't as effective as gravity, so to give it an extra bump, the extra 8 hours are needed.

Re:Why not rotate the station to simulate gravity?

[Caerdwyn]

1. The ring, to avoid problems with the aforementioned Coriolis force, would have to be hundreds of feet in diameter. The expense would be extreme.
2. The ring, to avoid problems induced by the mass of the astronauts moving from place to place, would have to either be very massive or have a series of weights that always move by themselves to the opposite side of the ring from where a given astronaut is located. Consider what this would do to the bearings of the interface of the nonrotating section if even a slight wobble were introduced. Think of what happens when one of your car's wheels throws a balance-weight. This counterbalance system would be a complex maintenance-hog with a really nasty failure mode
3. If the station is built without a nonrotating section (a la 2001:A Space Odyssey , docking becomes orders of magnitude more difficult and dangerous. We've already had incidents of damage to the ISS caused by bad docking attempts... now we want to add spin?
4. In an emergency, you're dealing with an object that has a lot of rotational inertia. How do you take the spin off? Will the ring tear itself apart if a critical structural member is micrometeored, hit with space junk, or suffers a material failure?
5. How would EVAs to do inspections and repairs work? Sounds like a very high possibility of an astronaut getting slung off into the great black void.

It's a good idea for the health of the astronauts, but the cost is prohibitive. Science fiction authors don't have to deal with the budgetary process...

Re:Why not rotate the station to simulate gravity?

[Anaerin]

As has been mentioned a few times earlier, there are several reasons.

• You need a (very large) spinning area for the correct amount of inertial force to create a gravitic effect. On a station as small as the ISS, having a rotating section (Which would need to rotate pretty fast for the necessary G forces) would induce a very pronounced "Coriolis effect", which would have the astronauts within constantly throwing up and uncomfortable (at the very least).
• The interface between the rotating and non-rotating sections would be extremely difficult to make and keep secure. Any mechanical failure would lead to rapid destruction of the entire station, as the several tonnes of rotating mass will maintain it's inertia and rip itself, and the station, apart against the seized bearings or other failed part.
• Given that well over three quarters of the experimentation on the ISS is related to behavior of items in microgravity, to remove that microgravity would remove most of the incentive to study anything on-board.
• Spinning an area of the ship like that would create a gyroscopic effect, which could severely destabilize the ISS' orbit without constant correction, which would use large amounts of fuel.
• Having just one spinning section would also, by the friction in the interface parts, cause the stationary section to begin turning with the spinning section. Or, if the spinning section is spinning against the stationary section, a counter-rotation in the "stationary" section. The "Fix" to this would be to have two "Spinning" sections, which counter-rotate, but this would mean there would have to be massive upgrades to in-between sections to handle the torque, and of course, twice the potential problems.

Or, they could put the astronauts in small spandex suits and swap them out every few months to recover. It's not as if staying on the ISS is a permanent position (yet), after all.

Re:rotate the station.

[AmigaHeretic]

I find it funny that every Tom, Dick, and Harry without a high school education thinks that they're a brilliant engineer whenever they read about some problem that hundreds of experienced engineers couldn't solve. Seriously, take ten seconds and go google your idea BEFORE touting it as the magical solution that all of these foolish NASA engineers didn't think of.

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