On March 14, a journey that was originally just over a week – but was stretched until nine months – ended. NASA Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were selected for the first crew spy on Elon Musk's Starliner and were only supposed to stay in the International Space Station for 10 days, but when NASA had several helium leaks and destruction system issues on the space -in -space on the spacecraft.
This is not like a version with a low gravity of “The Terminal”, in which travelers are in the dark because of an administrative glitch. The space can have devastating and in -depth health effects on astronauts, which means that Williams and Wilmore's extensive stay at the ISS can lead to pronounced effects on their bodies.
Launching in space requires the undergoing of G-Force more than double what we experience on earth, that former NASA-Astronaut Dr. Sandy Magnus once described as feeling that a “70-pound gorilla is on your chest.” But that is the last of Gravity astronauts who feel before they re -enter the atmosphere of the earth once their mission is completed, and as soon as they enter a job, they will spend the rest of their time in the room in their seats.
But the effects of gravity – or the lack thereof – are just the beginning of how space manipulates the human body. Everything, from aggravating vision to genetic changes in skin rash that develop on arrival – no longer used to the touch of dust on your clothing – has been reported to people who went to space.
“In general, the environment in space causes an accelerated model for diseases, and what we say is an accelerated model for aging,” said Dr. Afshin Behshti, director of the Center for Space Biomedicin at the University of Pittsburgh. “But you don't agree faster, it's just that all things related to aging, such as cardiovascular risk or cognitive problems … everything is a bit accelerated in space because of that environment.”
This week, four astronauts left for the ISS, where the spacecraft will pick up Williams and Wilmore before he returns home. At the moment Williams and Wilmore have been in space for nine months and have merged with only eight other astronauts who have spent more than 200 days in space. (NASA -Astronaut Frank Rubio owns the record on 371 days.) Of what we know about the consequences of space on health, it takes them some time to recover from the trip.
“If we come back, even to lift a pencil, we will feel the weight,” Wilmore said in a CNN interview last month. “That is the transition back.”
That is partly because on earth gravity is constantly working on the skeleton, which stimulates bone construction cells, called osteoblasts that retain our bone density. Without that power, bone density and muscles can atrofen and weaken, where bones are dense 1% less for each month in space without any measures to combat bone loss.
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Although Williams and Wilmore practice daily to reduce these effects, they will probably still have experienced a considerable loss of bone density when they come back. At Landing, Wilmore and Williams will be confronted with medical teams who can help them get started with a 45-day recovery program after the mission, said Nasa's main flight surgeon Dr. Stevan Gilmore.
“They work closely with trainers and devote two hours every day to return to their pre-Flight Baseline State of Health and Fitness,” Gilmore wrote to Salon in an e-mail. “In general, the physiological systems of most crew members recover within this time frame.”
For comparison, after NASA -Astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year in space, he had to learn how to walk again, Behshti said.
“Because it is in space for such a year, it will certainly take a while before they earn back the damage caused,” Behshti told Salon in a telephone interview.
Kelly participated in the twin study carried out by NASA, in which various biomarkers were compared to his twin brother (Senator Mark Kelly) who remained on earth. After the space flight, Kelly had more symptoms of heart disorders than his brother and shown symptoms of something that is associated with spacecrafted neuroocular syndrome (sans), in which blood and brain fluid travels up from the legs to the head without the power of gravity that influences the brain and vision.
“He didn't wear glasses before he went, but he came back and started wearing glasses,” said Beheshti.
In addition, disturbances of the body's internal clock can influence the sleeping and eating cycles of astronaut. Some studies have also shown that the cognitive processing speeds of astronauts were slower in space, although these changes returned to the baseline on return to Earth. Similar results were found in research tests at cognition among citizens who went to space.
“Sometimes people actually perform better in space, and they are in a certain sense even more focused,” said Dr. Chris Mason, a professor in physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “But sometimes people get a little slower. It really depends on the crew member.”
Radiation is also much stronger in space without the protective ozone layer on earth to buffer it, and it can have different effects on the body on a cellular level. For every week that astronauts spend on the ISS, the radiation they experience is equal to about a year in exposure on earth, although this can vary, depending on how many solar flames or cosmic rays occur in the room.
This radiation has shown that it influences the mitochondrial function of the cell, which can have electric effects on the body, Behshti said.
“The mitochondria are your bio energy, so your energy in your body is produced by all mitochondria in your cells,” said Behshti. “When the bio energy is damaged, you can imagine that it has harmful effects … influence on your immune system and circadian rhythm.”
Exposure to radiation at these levels is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, cancer and other degenerative disorders that influence the eyes. Researchers have been able to measure various biomarkers in astronauts who went to space and discovered that exposure to radiation and anti -gravity also significantly influences immune function.
In a study from 2024, published in communication biology, Mason discovered that astronauts spent time in space had longer telomeres, or structures at the end of chromosomes that protect DNA. Although longer telomeres are associated with young people, they are also linked to certain cancers.
Mason's research also discovered that various genes involved in the immune system were activated with space flight, presumably as a mounted reaction to the stress on which the body is placed in these circumstances.
“There are also anti -inflammatory markers called Interleukins that are activated, and we have seen some of them in almost every mission, so we would expect them to have them here too,” Mason Salon said in a telephone interview. “We see many genes for DNA repair are activated, as the body detects part of the damage and then repairs that damage, which is a normal adaptive reaction.”
These effects increase the longer astronauts in space, although about 95% of these cellular changes return to the baseline within a few weeks after astronauts who return to Earth, Mason said. For Kelly, 90% of the gene changes he experienced returned to normal within six months. In Mason's research, the telomere changes returned to the baseline within a few days, he said.
Yet there are individual differences that can influence how quickly an astronaut bounces back and scientists are constantly investigating what influences health insurance for astronauts.
Scientists have not yet found a way to fully block the radiation, which interacts with the body as fast -moving invisible particles that can break DNA. However, there are efforts to test new small molecules in rodents that can improve the resistance to radiation. This can have implications, not only for astronauts in space, but patients on earth must undergo invasive radiotherapies for cancer.
Studying others or an induced form of “artificial hibernation” could protect against some of the harmful effects of radiation. In recent studies, stimulating the same process that squirrels and bears go through in the winter is reduces the toxicity of radiation.
“When radiation damage has been caused on your body, you create reactive oxygen species and that ensures that power -reducing things influence your immune system and things like that while you also suppress your mitochondriën,” Beheshti said. “But when your body is closed in that hibernation status, such as with these animals, those reactive oxygen species are no longer produced that way, and then less damage seems to have been caused by the radiation.”
Commercial Space Flight has started in recent years and billionaires such as Musk are increasingly pushing a move to Mars, and these issues emphasize the innate challenges that people – who have developed for millions of years to live under the influence of gravity and atmosphere of the earth – are confronted with the extension of our reach in the outdoor space.
Wilmore and Williams will undoubtedly need some time to recover from their long journey, but they have devoted years to preparing the experience. Yet they do not seem too much trouble with the extra time they have spent in the job.
“I think we will both be a bit sad if that feeling of space leaves us after about 24 hours,” said Williams in the CNN interview last month. “That means that physically the space flight ended.”
