I've been asked many times if I would go to space, and I always reply that I wouldn't. Not for long at least. Truth is, I am terrified of what happens to a human body in space. The more I read about it, the more my admiration towards the people who would travel to space grows, and the more I want to help them stay healthy under these conditions.
Microgravity → Deconditioning
Isn't it interesting that the biggest challenge is not to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, but to stay healthy without it? All our systems have evolved to work under gravity; we can't just take it out of the equation without consequences. Just like we fall out of shape if we don't work out, we fall out of shape even faster when we don't even have to work against gravity. Quick and profound deconditioning of the heart, the muscles, and the bones means we cannot perform under gravity anymore, but it also means that our health is not guaranteed. Blood distribution is affected, and injuries and fractures are suddenly a much more likely occurrence.
Radiation → Oxidative Stress
Another thing we have not evolved for is exposure to radiation. Earth has our back, its atmosphere conveniently filtering out the radiation from the cosmic rays, and keeping us safe. But when we leave Earth's gravitational field, we also leave this radiation shield. Loads of energy bombard our cells, causing DNA damage known as oxidative stress. The consequences are of a very wide range, because of the way and the places disaster can hit - one mutation can cause cancer, can destroy the liver's capacity to handle glucose, can lead to the onset of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
Food Quality → Gut Microbiota Disruption
And it's not just our cells that suffer casualties. The tiny organisms we all carry in our gut and need in order to stay healthy are feeling radiation as badly as we do. However, even efficient shielding from radiation would not help the gut microbiota, because there are multiple aspects of human spaceflight that disrupt them. Truth is, we can't keep them happy without an adequate amount of fibre, a big challenge with the type of food that is fit for space travel. Even on Earth, with our full access to fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, we are still struggling to consume those amounts.
Lack of Sunlight → Hormonal Disruption
Moreover, there's the lack of sunlight we need to worry about: without a proper day-night cycle, the bodies of the astronauts get confused. They don't know when it is time to secrete the hormone that makes you sleepy, or the hormone that makes you hungry. And hormones regulate pretty much everything in our bodies - including everything mentioned in the above paragraphs. Like a Matryoshka doll, each disruption encloses another disruption, and every single system is thrown completely out of sync.
Isolation → Mental Derangement
We've only talked about physiological damage so far, but there's another type of damage suffered: the impact of spaceflight on mental health. For sure, the value of the Overview Effect is undisputed, but there's a price that comes with everything else an astronaut of the ISS puts up with in order to get to observe the Earth from that distance. It is proven that isolation can create social tension, and can feed anxiety and depression. One more type of stress can arise in the context of cultural differences, and another one from the mental load this type of job requires. Stress factors, except the mental discomfort and the lack of peace, convey physiological changes especially in the hormonal secretion systems, and the tree of problems gains another branch.
Interdisciplinarity → Solutions
The term "interdisciplinarity" gets thrown around a lot these days, but it really should be our mantra. Complex problems can only be solved by people who understand all aspects- a level of knowledge impossible to be achieved by a single person. That's why we are joining our forces. This should not include only scientists who will analyse biomarkers or engineers who will build bigger and better facilities. It also includes artists, who will make spaceflight more soothing to the human mind, with art that makes us feel comfortable, but also with art to help us feel strong enough to pull through, or art that communicates the wonders of such a trip and inspires. And one day, even the most worried of us will feel secure enough to go to space.
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