Weightless on Earth: Preparing astronauts for microgravity

Throughout missions on the Worldwide House Station, astronauts’ our bodies undergo a wide selection of modifications attributable to lack of gravity—all the pieces from imaginative and prescient to cardiovascular well being to bone density is affected.

Although astronauts train and take dietary supplements to mitigate a few of these results, understanding extra about deconditioning in microgravity might enable physicians to design higher therapies. This would not simply be helpful for spacefarers; it might additionally enhance therapy methods for widespread well being situations right here on Earth.

Staying dry in a moist scenario

To do that, the ESA SciSpacE staff and a staff of European scientists designed VIVALDI, which takes place within the MEDES House Clinic (Institute for House Drugs and Physiology) in Toulouse, France—one of many solely services in Europe which may host such research.

VIVALDI is an experiment that focuses on what’s generally known as dry immersion—a ground-based analog of the results microgravity has on the physique. Because the identify suggests, dry immersion includes being immersed in water for lengthy durations, whereas staying dry. To do that, contributors are clothed in a water-resistant material and laid in specially-designed water baths. Their physique is then submerged to above the torso, with a fitted waterproof tarp holding their arms and head above water.

Throughout VIVALDI, contributors spend 5 complete days on this place. Meals are taken with the help of a floating board and a neck pillow. For toilet breaks and different actions that require elimination from water, contributors are assisted onto a trolley, sustaining their laid-back place, and briefly faraway from the water by employees.

Submerging contributors on this means takes weight off the physique, inducing microgravity-like alterations to neurological, cardiovascular, and metabolic methods, to call just some. Fluids throughout the physique shift, and physiological processes start to resemble these seen in astronauts throughout spaceflight.

The comfort of being on the bottom, nonetheless, permits researchers to make all types of hands-on medical assessments, and intently monitor how methods change throughout the course of weightlessness. Such an analog additionally permits researchers to collect knowledge on bodily modifications from extra individuals, in addition to draw agency conclusions about what they’re observing extra shortly.

Microgravity on Earth?

Although dry immersion is extra generally utilized by Russian researchers, the ESA SciSpacE staff is testing to see simply how comparable it’s to precise spaceflight. By way of VIVALDI, they hope to determine particularly what modifications occur to the physique throughout weightlessness, how lengthy these modifications take to occur, and the way they examine to each spaceflight and different ground-based microgravity analogs.

“Our first goal is to make use of the analog to get a greater understanding on how people physiologically, and to a sure extent psychologically, react and adapt to such an excessive stimulus,” says Angelique, ESA Self-discipline Lead for Life Sciences. “It is a good software to get a greater understanding of how astronauts adapt to spaceflight, and it permits us to check and validate countermeasures.”

The primary leg of this experiment, VIVALDI I, featured an all-female group of contributors, to fill a spot in present analysis. Alongside VIVALDI II, the soon-to-begin second leg involving male contributors, the information gathered will give researchers an concept of what strains microgravity locations on astronauts of any intercourse, in order that broadly efficient mitigation approaches might be designed

Affect past spaceflight

Nevertheless it’s not simply astronauts that profit from this analysis. Analysis that helps us attain the Moon and Mars may also be translated to healthcare right here on Earth. Understanding deconditioning utilizing dry immersion can also assist researchers and physicians to design new therapy approaches for affected person populations, resembling these with muscoloskeletal situations, those that are immobilized, and the aged.

“At ESA, we actually attempt to focus additionally on that translational facet,” shares Angelique. “If we will take a look at countermeasures, like particular kinds of train or nutritional supplements, and we see they work effectively, possibly well being researchers can contemplate testing them for particular affected person populations, too.”