This can affect the cardiovascular system and vision. Without gravity pulling blood towards our feet, astronauts experience a fluid shift that causes more blood to pool in the upper body. “The cardiovascular system also experiences many changes. “Microgravity affects a lot of body systems, muscle and bone being among them,” Gabel said. That could be a prelude to future astronaut missions to Mars or a longer-term presence on the lunar surface. For instance, NASA is aiming to send astronauts back to the moon, a mission now planned for 2025 at the earliest. Space travel poses various challenges to the human body - key concerns for space agencies as they plan new explorations. space agency NASA, Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The study did not give their nationalities but they were from the U.S. The study’s astronauts flew on the space station in the past seven years. Once the astronaut comes back to Earth, the remaining bone connections can thicken and strengthen, but the ones that disconnected in space can’t be rebuilt, so the astronaut’s overall bone structure permanently changes,” Gabel said. “During spaceflight, fine bone structures thin, and eventually some of the bone rods disconnect from one another. Space agencies are going to need to improve countermeasures - exercise regimes and nutrition - to help prevent bone loss, Gabel said. The bone loss occurs because bones that typically would be weight-bearing on Earth do not carry weight in space.
“Astronauts experienced significant bone loss during six-month spaceflights - loss that we would expect to see in older adults over two decades on Earth, and they only recovered about half of that loss after one year back on Earth,” Gabel said. What’s novel about this study is that we followed astronauts for one year after their space travel to understand if and how bone recovers,” said University of Calgary professor Leigh Gabel, an exercise scientist who was the lead author of the research published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. “We know that astronauts lose bone on long-duration spaceflight. Nine did not recover bone mineral density after the space flight, experiencing permanent loss. It involved 14 male and three female astronauts, average age 47, whose missions ranged from four to seven months in space, with an average of about 5-1/2 months.Ī year after returning to Earth, the astronauts on average exhibited 2.1% reduced bone mineral density at the tibia - one of the bones of the lower leg - and 1.3% reduced bone strength.
The research amassed new data on bone loss in astronauts caused by the microgravity conditions of space and the degree to which bone mineral density can be regained on Earth. Results of precipitator dust removal efficiency obtained from the fine particle analyzers and from the laser extinction method are shown along with a description of the assumptions made and the limitations of each method.A study of bone loss in 17 astronauts who flew aboard the International Space Station is providing a fuller understanding of the effects of space travel on the human body and steps that can mitigate it, crucial knowledge ahead of potential ambitious future missions. We also describe the method used to introduce and aerosolize simulant dust particles with the desired size and particle concentration into the precipitator at the required gas flow rates. In this paper, we describe the methods used to determine particle density and collection efficiency using the fine particle analyzers along with the laser extinction method.
The experimental set up added to the existing electrostatic precipitator system included two customized dust particle analyzers, a laser, and optical sensors to measure particle size distribution, particle morphology, and collection efficiency. We performed experimentation to aerosolize and inject Martian simulant particles with a representative dust density and size range into the precipitator intake and to measure removal efficiency. An electrostatic precipitator capable of operating in the Martian environment is under development to meet this need. Mars atmospheric in-situ resource utilization processes will require dust filtration of large gaseous volumes.