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Eye Problems From Space Affect At Least 21 NASA Astronauts
SternisheFan sends this report from Universe Today:
How does microgravity affect your health? One of the chief concerns of NASA astronauts these days is changes to eyesight. Some people come back from long-duration stays in space with what appears to be permanent changes, such as requiring glasses when previously they did not. And the numbers are interesting. A few months after NASA [said] 20% of astronauts may face this problem, a new study points out that 21 U.S. astronauts that have flown on the International Space Station for long flights (which tend to be five to six months) face visual problems. These include "hyperopic shift, scotoma and choroidal folds to cotton wool spots, optic nerve sheath distension, globe flattening and edema of the optic nerve," states the University of Houston, which is collaborating with NASA on a long-term study of astronauts while they're in orbit.
like they exhibit a spacey behavior or demeanor?
I know there are all kinds of chronic health problems that can emerge from extended stays in space - heart problems being the big one, since the heart doesn't like going from microgravity to Earth gravity abruptly. Yet, it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot to be done about it unless we find a way to generate gravity in space. Has any research been done on mitigating the effects of space?
bone density plummets, muscles atrophy, eyes degenerate. Are we telling this to kids that go to space camp? Being an astronaut is as bad if not worse for your health as playing in the NFL. Of course, i find the former more interesting to follow from the comfort of my armchair.
Clearly, all the sci-fi books and movies from the 1960s showed that The Species (tm) *must* colonize the universe and get off this rock.
'nuff said.
Not enough hot green alien ladies to make first contact with yet, I surmise is the root cause of this problem.
Obviously orbital habitats either need to be spun-up or contain living quarters located within centerfuges.
We've long known what will likely avoid these sorts of problems - create a rotating environment to simulate gravity.
While the physics principle is simple, engineering a safe rotating station is probably quite challenging.
The sort of thing NASA was created to investigate...
But surely the goggles do something.
In order to travel into the heavens as the various ancient mystics told us?
This is an unintuitive wild speculation, but I wonder if these effects are a linear function of the gravity or if there is a more complex interaction.
In other words, if Alice spent 6 monts in zero-G and Bob spent 6 months in 0.166-G, and assuming equal eye health, would Bob have less damage than Alice or more?
Obviously the human body emerged out of a 1-G environment, so the eye has evolved with those pressures. But just because removing those pressures completely may result in harm, that is not to say that removing those pressures partially would be harmful.
The only non-zero-G astronauts I know of were the Apollo folks - but I can't find any information (or anectdotes from them) on the difference in physiological effects of zero-g versus 1/6th-G.
It seems like they would have experienced less intercranial pressure and would have had an actual reference for up and down.
Oh space be a harsh mistress.
Oh he's not a doctor. But he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Obviously orbital habitats either need to be...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Pursued by the strivers and the authoritarians.
Eye Problems From Space Affect At Least 21 NASA Astronauts
Oh noes! All of the future Space Pirates are now in serious trouble!
Captain: Arrr, ye matys! Let's board that tiny hauler thair before they knows what hit them. Ther'll be treasure enough for us all!
Crewmember 1: Arrr, ey, capt'in!
(Captain runs to the gangway in order to board the other ship.) "Open port -- board and attaaaack!"
Crewmember 2: Ey ey, capt'in!
Crewmember 1: But Capt'in! Ey -- my ey! I can't see the controls to dock us! (Door slides open. Entire problem shortly solved.)
Thus, Global Warming continues unabated. The world is doomed. News at 11.
And now, a word from our sponsor: LensCrafters is now selling asbestos-tinted glasses with cutlass frames. Hurry before supplies run out!
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
My wearing glasses is proof I was abducted by aliens, right?
That's it. I'm definitely not going into space.
NASA, please take my name off the list. I've changed my mind.
You are welcome on my lawn.
without surgery!
It's a great first step for NASA, now if they can further admit that those astronauts have also come back with weird shifts in rectal geometry, we can begin to face, as a species, the deeper space facts of life.
I suppose it all depends on how you read TFA. If you insert a pause, the headline reads correctly, and I not to edit any of the article. I did a straight copy/paste (lazy me!), and I could have adjusted the wonky reading headline, but thought, "Nah, let the /.'ers have some fun with this one." The editors did a good job of editing the submission, creating the correct hyperlinks that I did not do, *again lazy me).
"..., and I 'did' not 'try' to edit..." (sigh...)
Astronauts tend to be proud of their eyesight... like Chuck Yeager:
http://www.achievement.org/aut...
From the early days of test pilots and the original Right Stuff astronauts they've typically had much better than 20/20 eyesight. :^O
So it's probably easy to detect this sort of thing, and they might be a little ticked off to loose it
Of course a lot of people would go to space even if they went blind... most of us risked that in Junior High School anyway!
Imagine a world where we've got people living their whole lives, or something close to it, in space. Over time the people who are least affected by these kinds of problems would presumably have an evolutionary advantage. Long term, a whole new race of humans adapted to life in space develops.
seriously, making a spinning station can't be _that_ hard.
Better launch systems and faster engines might help. The less time in microgravity, the less damage.(?) That fact we use chemical rockets to get into space and maneuver seems kind of antique.
Some speculations... The US RDA for vitamin D is about 10X too low for adults, so likely all astronauts in the space station have been deficient, which could contribute to bone loss and some other health effects. Also, living in a liquid environment might help mitigate loss of muscle tone by creating muscle-strengthening resistance as astronauts swim in the liquid the same way dolphins stay fit floating essentially weightlessly in water. (Granted, it might not be identical to living in a G-field.) A resistant spacesuit might also provide some of this conditioning too -- however the liquid also doubles as a radiation shield, at the cost of more mass to lift into space. Breathable liquids have been researched, but I don't know where that work is now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Others have talked about rotating cylinders (like O'Neill space habitats). I'm all in favor of trying that. However, those seem harder to make and maintain and travel between that more modular zero-G Marshall-Savage-Millennial-Project-like-plastic-bubbles with two meter water shields at the exterior for radiation protection. So, it seems like ultimately genetic engineering, nanoengineering, or medicine to adapt humans to zero-G might ultimately be cheaper than rotating space habitats. Or, maybe, like Hans Moravec suggests, space will be the domain of our zero-G-optimized robot "mind children" (and perhaps human minds downloaded into some of them or teleoperating some of them).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.