Monthly Archives: March 2015

IMAGE:NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, Expedition 37 flight engineer, performs ultrasound eye imaging in the Columbus laboratory of the International Space Station. European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, flight engineer, assists... view more

Credit: NASA

A change in your vision is great when referring to sparking a creative idea or a new approach to a challenge. When it refers to potential problems with sight, however, the cause and possible solutions need to be identified.

The human body is approximately 60 percent fluids. During spaceflight, these fluids shift to the upper body and move across blood vessel and cell membranes differently than they normally do on Earth.

One of the goals of the Fluid Shifts investigation, launching to the International Space Station this spring, is to test the relationship between those fluid shifts and a pattern NASA calls visual impairment and intracranial pressure syndrome, or VIIP. It involves changes in vision and the structure of the eyes and indirect signs of increased pressure in the brain, and investigators say more than half of American astronauts have experienced it during long spaceflights.

Improved understanding of how blood pressure in the brain affects eye shape and vision also could benefit people on Earth who have conditions that increase swelling and pressure in the brain or who are put on extended bed rest.

"Our first aim is to assess the shift in fluids, to see where fluids go and how the shift varies in different individuals," says Michael B. Stenger, Ph.D., Wyle Science Technology and Engineering Group, one of the principal investigators. "Our second goal is to correlate fluid movement with changes in vision, the structure of the eye, and other elements of VIIP syndrome."

A third aim is to evaluate application of negative pressure to the lower body to prevent or reverse fluid shifts and determine whether this prevents vision changes. Researchers are collaborating with Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space Agency) on that part of the study because the Russians have a lower body negative pressure device, the Chibis suit, aboard the station. Recently published ground-based data show that applying negative pressure over the lower body helps shift fluids away from the head during simulated spaceflight, adds co-investigator Brandon Macias, Ph.D., of the University of California San Diego.

For a variety of reasons, the Chibis suit cannot be moved from the Russian Service Module of the space station. Therefore, to conduct these unique experiments, crew members will transport medical research equipment from the U.S. side of the station to the Russian module. Moving things around in space is a lot more complicated than it is on the ground, says co-investigator Douglas Ebert, Ph.D., of Wyle Laboratories. In this case, it will take more than four hours of crew time to move and set up the equipment, one or two hours for the experiment itself, and another four or so hours to move everything back.

That effort will pay off though, in terms of new and important data that may lead to the answers of how and why VIIP happens and how to prevent or treat it during spaceflight.

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Pressure is on to find the cause for vision changes in space

Science and politics have both benefited from humanitys journey into space. And we really might just be getting started

Credit: almir1968/Thinkstock

Editor's note: The following is the introduction to the February 2015 issue of Scientific American Classics: Conquering Space.

I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. As Apollo 11 touched down on that gray, cratered surface, I was already dreaming of following those astronauts into space. The moon missions made meand millions of others around the worldfeel as though we could do anything, go anywhere.

Twenty-five years after that first moon landing, I was flying onboard the space shuttle Columbia on a 15-day mission during which we conducted some 80 experiments in microgravity.

Space travel was unlike anything I could have imagined when I was a boy. It remained fantastic even after two more shuttle flights, a Soyuz flight and six months on the International Space Station (ISS).

I remember taking a space walk on the ISS. There I was, wrench in hand, tightening bolts on a new module. It was such a mundane task. But when I looked in one direction, there was Earth floating in vivid blues and greens. In the other direction, I could see the blackest black conceivable, punctured by unwavering pinpoints of starshine. It was intense and surreal.

You might have heard about a transformation that can occur when someone first sees Earth from spacehow it becomes harder to think about my country or my people and harder not to think about our planet.

I can tell you, that transformation is real.

I came home with a different sense of our world. And I would wager that every single one of the 500-plus men and women who have traveled into space came home transformed as well. It is one of the reasons why I continue to believe that we need to keep sending humans into space as well as robots. The results are tangible: I have seen firsthand how projects such as the ISS can foster cooperation among countries and cultures that otherwise might find it easier to be enemies.

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Space to Grow

Astronauts on the International Space Station completed a spacewalk Sunday despite the appearance of water inside an astronaut's helmet, NASA reported.

In a tweet, the space agency said astronaut Terry Virts experienced water inside his helmet, just as he did Wednesday, but "it's a known issue; no concern."

The spacewalk lasted five hours and 38 minutes, NASA said.

"Crews have now spent a total of 1,171 hours and 29 minutes conducting space station assembly and maintenance during 187 spacewalks," the agency said in a release.

NASA previously said the suit worn by NASA astronaut Virts has a history of "sublimator water carryover." Water in the sublimator cooling component can condense when the suit is repressurized after a spacewalk, causing a small amount of water to push into the helmet, NASA said.

NASA said International Space Station managers had "a high degree of confidence" in the suit.

On the upcoming spacewalk, Virts and Barry Wilmore installed antennas to provide data to visiting vehicles and deploy 400 feet of cable along the edge of the station.

Virts said he first noticed traces of fluid and dampness in his helmet Wednesday while he was waiting for the crew lock cabin to repressurize.

He and Wilmore had been outside the space station for nearly seven hours working on the station's robotic arm and performing some maintenance.

Virts immediately alerted fellow astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti about the water, and she alerted Mission Control in Houston.

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Astronauts finish 5-hour spacewalk Sunday

Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, is set to revive its lunar programme Agency also pledged to work with Nasa to keep ISS operational until 2024 It came under pressure in 2014 after U.S banned high-tech exports to Russia

By Steph Cockroft for MailOnline

Published: 00:54 EST, 26 February 2015 | Updated: 03:40 EST, 26 February 2015

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Russia has announced plans to send manned flights to the moon by 2030, as it pledges to keep the International Space Station in orbit for nine more years.

Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, said it would launch the manned missions after reviving its lunar programme with unmanned spacecraft.

The news comes three years after a leaked document from the federal agency suggested a manned mission to the moon was in the pipeline.

Russia has announced plans to send manned flights to the moon by 2030, as it pledges to keep the International Space Station (pictured) in orbit for nine more years

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Russia plans to put man on Moon by 2030, as it pledges to keep International Space Station in orbit for nine more years