NASA astronauts return home after major delays. Their long-term accommodation may have health consequences

March 14th, which was supposed to end in a journey of more than a week (but has been extended by nine months). NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were selected as the first crew test flights on Elon Musk’s Starliner and should only stay at the International Space Station for 10 days, but when NASA discovered several helium leaks and propulsion system issues were found on the spacecraft, the agency decided to send it back until it was sent back to another mission until another mission could be sent to Buddhists.

This is not like some low-gravity versions of the “terminal”, in which case the traveler is in trouble due to some management glitches. Space can have devastating and far-reaching health effects on astronauts, meaning Williams and Wilmore’s long stay on the International Space Station may have a significant impact on their bodies.

Entering space requires more than twice as much as G-Force is what we have experienced on Earth, and former NASA astronaut Sandy Magnus once described it as “feeling like a “70-pound gorilla sitting on the chest.” But it’s the last feeling for gravity astronauts, once the mission is completed, they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and once they enter orbit, they will spend the rest of their time in the space they spend in their seats.

However, the impact of gravity (or lack of gravity) is just the beginning of how space manipulates the body. Everything from genetic changes that occur upon arrival to genetic changes to rashes that occur upon arrival (even no longer get used to the fabric on clothes).

“Usually, the space environment causes an accelerated model of disease, and we’re talking about a model that accelerates aging,” said Dr. Afshin Beheshti, director of the University of Pittsburgh Space Biomedical Center. “But you don’t age faster, just everything related to aging, like cardiovascular risk or cognitive problems … everything accelerates in space because of this environment.”

This week, four astronauts set out for the International Space Station, where the spacecraft will take over Williams and Wilmore before returning home. At this point, Williams and Willmore have been in space for nine months, joining eight other astronauts who have spent in space. (NASA astronaut Frank Rubio kept the record in 371 days.) As far as we know, the health effects of space will take some time to recover from the journey.

“When we come back, we feel weight even if we have to lift the pencil,” Willmore said in a CNN interview last month. “That’s the transition.”

This is partly because on Earth, the force of gravity continues to act on the bones, which stimulate bone-building cells, called bone cells, that maintain our bone density. Without this force, bone density and muscles will atrophy and weaken, and bones spend 1% per month in space without any measures to combat bone loss.

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Although Williams and Wilmore exercise these effects every day, they can still cause huge bone density losses when they come back. NASA’s chief flight surgeon Dr. Stevan Gilmore said after landing, Willmore and Williams will meet with the medical team and they can help them start a 45-day post-recovery recovery program.

“They worked closely with trainers to specialize in two hours a day to return to their pre-flight health and fitness status,” Gilmore wrote in an email. “Generally, most crew members’ physiological systems recover within this period.”

Comparison, after NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year in space, he had to learn how to walk again.

“In space like this for a year, it will definitely take some time for them to compensate for the damage caused,” Beheshti told Salon in a telephone interview.

Kelly participated in a twin study conducted by NASA, in which several of his biomarkers were compared with his twin brother (Sen. Mark Kelly). After space flight, Kelly had more heart disease than his brothers and showed symptoms of a space flight-related neuroophthalmic syndrome (SANS), where blood and cerebrospinal fluid spread from the legs upwards, without gravity, affecting the brain and vision.

“He didn’t wear glasses before he went, but he came back and started wearing glasses,” Beshti said.

In addition, interference with the human body’s internal clock will affect the astronaut’s sleep and feeding cycles. Some studies have also shown that astronauts’ cognitive processing speeds are slower in space, although these changes return to baseline after returning to Earth. Similar results were found in research test cognitions of civilians traveling to space.

“Sometimes people actually perform better in space and are somewhat more focused,” said Dr. Chris Mason, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “But sometimes people get a little slower. It really depends on the crew.”

Radiation is also stronger without the protective ozone layer on Earth to cushion it, and may have several effects on the body at the cellular level. For the week that astronauts spend on the International Space Station, the radiation they experience is equivalent to about a year of exposure on Earth, although this may vary depending on how many solar flares or cosmic rays occur in space.

Beheshti said the radiation has been shown to affect the mitochondrial function of cells, which could have a downstream impact on the body.

“Mitrochondria are your bioenergy, so the energy in your body is produced by all the mitochondria in the cell,” Beheshti said. “When bioenergy is damaged, you can imagine it has harmful effects…affecting your immune system and circadian rhythm.”

Exposure to radiation at these levels is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases that affect the eyes. Researchers have been able to measure several biomarkers of astronauts heading to space and found that exposure to radiation and antigenicity can also significantly affect immune function.

In a 2024 study published in Communications Biology, Mason found that astronauts spending in space have longer telomeres, or structures at the end of chromosomes that protect DNA. Although longer telomeres are associated with youth, they are also associated with certain cancers.

Mason’s research also found that several genes related to the immune system are activated by space flight, presumably in the installation response to the stress the human body is under these conditions.

“There are also anti-inflammatory markers called Interleukins, and almost every task sees some of them, so we hope they will be here too,” Mason told Salon in a phone interview. “We see a lot of genes used for DNA repair being activated, such as the body is detecting some damage and then repairing the damage, which is a normal adaptive response.”

Mason said these effects would increase longer astronauts in space, although 95% of these cellular changes return to baseline within weeks of astronauts’ return to Earth. For Kelly, 90% of the changes in the gene he experienced returned to normal within six months. In Mason’s study, telomer changes returned to baseline within a few days, he said.

Still, there are individual differences that can affect the speed of astronauts’ rebound, and scientists have been studying what affects the risk of astronauts’ disease.

Scientists have not found a way to completely block radiation, which interacts with the body as fast-moving invisible particles that can break down DNA. However, efforts are being made to test new small molecules in rodents that can improve radiation resistance. This has an impact not only on astronauts in space, but also on patients on Earth must receive invasive radiation therapy for cancer.

Others are investigating whether the induced form of “artificial hibernation” can prevent some harmful effects of radiation. In recent studies, stimulating the same process that squirrels and bears go through during winter reduces the toxicity of the radiation.

“When your body causes radiation damage, you produce reactive oxygen species, which causes things downstream to affect your immune system and things like that, while also inhibiting mitochondria,” Beheshti said. “But when your body is shut down in this hibernation state (such as in these animals), those species of reactive oxygen species stop producing so much, and then the damage caused by radiation seems to be less.”

Commercial space flights have taken off in recent years, and billionaires like Musk are increasingly pushing Mars, problems highlighting the innate challenge of humanity, that humanity has developed for millions of years to live under the influence of Earth’s gravity and atmosphere – trying to expand our range in outer space.

Wilmore and Williams will undoubtedly take some time to recover from the long journey, but they are committed to preparing for the experience. Still, they don’t seem to be bothered by the extra time they spend on track.

“I think when this feeling of space makes us feel a little sad after about 24 hours,” Williams said in a CNN interview last month. “It means that the physical space flight is over.”