Space Travel and Nature vs. Nurture
The lunar fly-by of Artemis II was broadcast all over the world this week, paving the way for a more permanent human presence on out moon and for potential human travel further out of our solar system. This begs the question of how micro- and zero-gravity affects the human body in the long-term. Understanding the physiological and psychological changes that occur is important if we are to mitigate side effects of long-term exposure to micro-gravity.
As there are very few people who have been in micro-gravity long enough for some of these changes to become apparent, the sample size of any study is going to be very small at this stage and therefore results and statistics should be taken with a grain of salt.
However, in 2019 NASA published a unique study comparing the physiologies and psychologies of identical twins; one of whom was an astronaut on the ISS and the other remained on Earth (labelled the “ground control”). This study was took place over the course of a year and yielded data that has been used to examine a number of difference systems in the years since. (Although one caveat that should be noted is that the “ground control” twin was a former astronaut who had also completed missions for NASA and his body was therefore not unfamiliar with the affects of zero-gravity, but for the purposes of this study, the acute affects and recovery only were being measured so this twin’s previous micro-gravity experience would have minimal to no affect on the results.
This research allows experts to assess and ameliorate the hazards and health risks associated with long-term space flight.
Check out this paper, leave a rating and tell us what you think!
Zhongquan Dai, Xiaohua Lei, Chao Yang, Lei Zhao, Liang Lu, Yinghui Li