At some point if your life, you’ve probably had aspirations about space travel. After all, it seems like every five-year-old wants to be an astronaut, and as missions to the moon, Mars, and other extraterrestrial bodies become more and more accessible, the idea of jetting off Earth seems less and less far-fetched. But before you get too excited about going into space, you might want to consider the effects space missions have on the human brain. As it turns out, the effects are a bit alarming.
As NASA begins its search for new astronauts to populate the International Space Station and travel to Mars, new studies from the agency are also warning candidates of the potential physiological toll that being away from the planet for extended periods of time may have. In fact, a number of different studies have suggested that long missions in outer space have significant effects on astronauts’ brains — as one recent NASA study found, “a microgravity environment can lead to changes in brain structure and take a serious toll on astronauts’ ability to think.” According to its results, astronauts who’d spent six months on the ISS “had a more difficult time completing mental tasks and with physical coordination.”
Furthermore, preliminary findings from an ongoing European Space Agency and Roscosmos study reveal that the cortex of the brain actually reorganizes itself in order to adapt to the new environment at play in space. While the study will continue into 2018, initial discoveries have already been published in the journal Brain Structure and Function.
Given that human beings are not meant to exist in space, it comes as little surprise that there are a number of factors in outer space that take a toll on our bodies. “Factors that can have an impact consist of, but are not limited to, weightlessness, cosmic radiation, isolation, confinement and disturbed day-night rhythm,” Angelique Van Ombergen of the University of Antwerp told The Huffington Post. “As one can imagine, all these factors can have an impact on the human brain, as they are new, challenging and stressful.”
But these results aren’t just meant to scare people away from venturing into space — rather, better understanding the effects of space travel could help scientists figure out how to adapt astronauts and their extraterrestrial environments to the extenuating circumstances at play. After all, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to stop going to Mars anytime soon, so we better learn all we can about how to get there safely, and fast.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.