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As NASA prepares for a crewed mission in the Martian system in the 2030s, or explores the moon even earlier, a former chief of flight medicine at the Johnson Space Center has an important message: not so quick. According to Jim Logan, who retired from NASA in 2012.
Many risks are already identified as they were studied in crew members aboard the International Space Station, he said – loss bone density, loss of muscle mass, including heart muscle, immune system changes and many other effects caused by the near-weightless environment.
The biomedical challenges of weightlessness are important, says Logan, since there are no known technologies in place or even considered to address them while humans are preparing to embark on longer journeys in deep space.
Meanwhile, scientists are well aware that cosmic and solar radiation is only going to hector humans once they venture beyond the Earth's magnetic field.
Still, there are probably many other biomedical challenges that the best minds in the world have not even imagined yet.
"What we have learned in 57 years Human space flight is that during short missions you can do just about anything you want as long as you take the environment with you and that your crews are properly trained, "Logan said Monday.
"But, once the missions last longer – up to six months and beyond – then the life science aspects become quite significant." And, once you start talking about robberies interplanetary, it's a brand new ball game. "
The Body in Space
Logan knows these aspects of the life sciences, having spent 22 years in Houston caring for astronauts design the medical facility now aboard the space station and do "a lot of strategic thinking about the future interplanetary phase of human exploration."
And on August 7, he will make a public presentation on the biomedical challenges of far-space missions at the Virginia Air & Space Center in downtown Hampton
He will appear at 7:30 pm As part of the Sigma conference series sponsored by the NASA Langley Research Center [19659002] Doris Hamill, physicist at NASA Langley, suggested Logan for the series.
"Some of the toughest challenges that humans face." Astronaut John Glenn made his historic turn into three orbits around the planet in 1962, but doctors feared that weightlessness would incapacitate him. to speak, hear, see, swallow or even think directly, Glenn wronged them, finishing all the tests they threw at him in his capsule.
But, from the first days of space flight, Medical observers have noticed changes in the human body that is adapting to the new environment of space.
Some changes have been "quite serious and disturbing," she said, though They are not shared publicly because they are considered private medical information.
In 2015, however, l & # 39; NASA astronaut Scott Kelly has accepted very public and lives aboard the space station for nearly a year so that scientists and doctors can learn more about the effect of microgravity on his physiology and psychology, comparing his data with those of his astronomer Mark Kelly.
Among those side effects, apart from bone loss and expected muscle mass: Scott Kelly grew 2 inches and 7% of his DNA changed
This after less than a year in quasi-weightlessness
Thinking about interplanetary flight, and eight months of transit to Mars and eight months back, and another 500 days on the surface of Mars, "says Logan," this becomes very significant. "
Gravity Prescription
Gravity is Logan said that, according to him, it should be added to the list of environmental parameters necessary for a journey in the deep space, much like the pressure in the cabin, water and food
"What you do not want Actually, you do not want to send healthy astronauts on the way to Mars and, by the time they arrive on Mars, they have the bones and muscle mass of a 70-year-old man. "
The Martian surface has about a third of Earth's gravity; One solution might lie in a promising Japanese experiment aboard the space station: mice placed in a centrifuge for a short time each day lost fewer bones and muscles than mice. who did not get the G force treatment.
But how important is a form of gravity therapy for humans in deep space? Nobody knows for sure, says Logan, and it's actually the goal.
"It is the 57 year of manned spaceflight, and one of the things we should have understood at the very beginning and not yet to know is what is the" gravity prescription " Logan said, "We do not know the dose, we do not know the frequency and we do not know the side effects."
And, should we discover that the gravitational prescription of the Terrans is greater than this that Mars has to offer, he said, "it is unlikely that the moon or Mars will ever be a civilization destination for human beings – at least not for the next 100 years or so" when technologies could advance to design a kind of "magic bullet." [19659026] The intelligence test
The biggest obstacle to missions in the deep space remains exposure to lethal space radiation, a challenge on which the NASA and others work.
The obstacle n & # Not insignificant On the ground, humans will be hit with a constant radiation dose of about 180 times that of the Earth's surface.
"The space is actually misnamed," Logan said. "The term" outer space "implies that it is a kind of huge and benign nothingness, but, in reality, space is a continuous, bubbling and undulating cauldron of highly dangerous ionizing radiation." [19659002] Logan says that it is not against the exploration of deep space. Not far away.
"I'm not a non-player," says Logan. "I have spent my entire career dedicated to manned spaceflight.I am a believer.Humans must be in space.But you have to do it wisely."
Up to now, he said, astronauts and astronauts do not seem to take his concerns as seriously as he does.
"Astronauts do not want to say anything This would prevent astronauts from flying on a mission – especially to Mars," said Logan. "They do not want to be detained.
"I informed the astronauts about the radiation problems and they look at me and they tell me:" Everything is fine, but if I have a chance to go on Mars I want the make. "
" I admire their bravery. I do really, honestly. But that does not help our long-term vision of making humanity a heavenly civilization. "
The way to becoming a successful interplanetary species is to avoid the type of" magic thinking "of Buck Rogers: landing 1000 colonists on Mars, for example – and facing the reality.
" Sometimes , the reality is hard to swallow, "Logan said." But, if you know what the reality is, if you really listen to it, the reality may tell you the way forward. "[19659002Thefirst50yearsofspaceflightwerelargelyanengineeringchallengeThenext50yearswillfocusprimarilyonthelifesciences
"Space is really a test of life." intelligence for the species, "he said." And so the problem is, do we have the right things to make the transition from earthly civilization to a celestial civilization? And this verdict has not arrived yet. "
Contact Dietrich at 757-247-7892 or [email protected] Follow on Twitter at DP_Dietrich
