Travel to space should be an eye-opening experienceone that gives you a new perspective humanity and its place in the cosmos. But while you might think an experience like this would make someone infinitely wiser, here’s a new report discovered that space travel could do that make you a little dumber.
With the recent influx of tourists traveling to space On private missions from companies like Blue Origin, scientists have seized the opportunity to see how real people react to time in space. That billionaires and retired actors heading into space, it offers a unique look at how normal bodies respond to the pressures of spaceflight versus astronauts who have trained for decades for their missions in orbit.
Now, a new report from the New York Times has revealed what exactly that impact looks like, and it doesn’t sound great for someone who wants to fly into orbit soon. This is evident from a recent investigation into the four hijackers astronauts aboard the 2021 Inspiration4Short periods of time in orbit can affect brain function, your immune system and even your physical condition. Like the Time explains:
Four people who spent three days outside Earth in September 2021 experienced physical and mental changes, including modest declines in cognitive tests, stressed immune systems and genetic changes in their cells, scientists report in a package of papers published Tuesday in the journal Nature and several other related magazines.
Almost everything that changed in the astronauts returned to normal after they crashed on Earth. None of the changes seemed to pose a huge warning to future space travelers. But the results also showed how little medical researchers know.
Christopher Mason, a professor of genomics, physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and one of the leaders of the study, called the paper and data collection “the most in-depth study we’ve ever had of a crew.” ‘, as he said during a press conference on Monday.
The four people selected to represent a “broader swath of society” include billionaire Jared Isaacman, who led the mission; Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant; Sian Proctor, professor at a community college; and Christopher Sembroski, an engineer. However, researchers anonymized each person’s data of the Inspiration4 mission.
By means of their journey into spaceIn addition to the build-up and the days following their flight, participants provided researchers with everything from blood and urine samples to cognitive data collected using specially designed tasks.
Research that analyzed the data collected found that kidney function was affected by time in space, making kidney stone formation slightly more likely, and that genetic markers that indicate age were also increased, meaning you appear genetically younger in spaceaccording to an article published by Nature. The team also looked at the crew’s ability to concentrate and maintain attention in space. Like the Time adds:
The astronauts performed various tests on iPads to measure their cognitive performance in space. One test evaluated what is known as psychomotor vigilance, a measure of the ability to focus on a task and maintain attention. The astronaut stared at a box on the screen. Then suddenly a stopwatch appeared in the box, counting the time until a button was pressed.
If the response was too slow, longer than 355 milliseconds, it was considered a loss of attention. On average, performance in space deteriorated compared to when the Inspiration4 astronauts did the same test on the ground. Other tests indicate deficits in visual search and working memory.
The test showed that the astronaut’s reaction times decreased in space, but the researchers admitted that this could also be because the participants were distracted by the grandeur of the cosmos.
Despite the study’s limited sample size, research like this will be important as more and more people travel into orbit in the coming years. It might help mission is similar to NASA’s Artemis program develop warnings and monitoring manuals for everyone in orbit, and that could affect how next generation space stations are designed.