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>> The focus of attention

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for science aboard the
International Space Station is

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from NASA's Marshall Flight
Space Center in Huntsville,

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Alabama, and standing
by there is Lori Meggs

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and she has an update for us.

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Lori, you have some results

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on some exercise
experiments on board, huh?

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>> Lori Meggs: That's right.

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Do we run differently in
space than we do on earth?

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Well, the answer
may surprise you.

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A study called Treadmill
Kinematics looked

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into how astronauts run on a
treadmill on the Space Station.

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I recently spoke
with or ran with?

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No, I spoke with principal
investigator to learn more.

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>> The idea behind the study
was to collect motion capture

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and ground reaction force data
from astronauts as they exercise

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on the Space Station in
order for us to be able

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to quantify these and
then compare those motions

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to how they're performed
on earth.

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>> Lori Meggs: So how did
it actually work on station?

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>> It was very simple actually.

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All we wanted to do was capture
data during an actual exercise

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session for the astronauts.

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We collected data six times
from each of our subjects

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and essentially all they
did was place a video camera

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up to view the side while
they performed their exercise

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and the treadmill that's

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on the Space Station
automatically captures the

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ground reaction force data.

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So we would down
link the video data,

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down link the ground
reaction force data

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and then we would start
computing what the peak forces

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were and what the joint
motion patterns were.

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It's very straightforward.

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>> Lori Meggs: How many
subjects did you end up with?

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>> We had 8 subjects;
7 males and 1 female.

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>> Lori Meggs: So tell me
do we have results yet?

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>> We do have results.

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There's a couple of things
that are very interesting.

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The first is that the running
style or the running motion

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that we use in space is pretty
much the exact same running

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motion that we use
on the ground.

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So people run in zero
gravity the same as they run

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in 1 gravity even though
they have to wear a harness

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and a bunch of that
connects them to the floor.

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On the surface, that
may be a so what?

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Well, there's a big so what.

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First of all the exercise that
they do on earth we can say

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that the way they're going
to move in space is going

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to be the same so we can start
to have better confidence

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that the way we exercise or the
way we prescribe our exercise

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on earth would be the same as
in space, but more importantly

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and this is where motor control
experts may be interested we

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have things in our body
that we use for control

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such as the [inaudible]
that rely on gravity.

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These data suggest
that either when we're

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in zero gravity we turn

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that information off
or we override it.

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So, it's not an important
control mechanism,

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and I think for people
studying how the brain works

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and how the brain controls
motion this is a really big

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study or really big result
because in the past most

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of these studies where
people have tried to look

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at how gravity affects motion
have really been focusing

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on smaller motions like
reaching and grabbing something

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and this is the only time that
we have a large scale amount

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of data with a pretty
large motion like running

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where you've got multiple
joints moving very quickly.

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To me it was pretty amazing

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that the people pretty much
run the same exact way in space

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as they do on the ground.

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>> Lori Meggs: What are
the earth applications

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for this experiment?

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>> We had to collect some
pretty sophisticated data

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in a very difficult location

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and we developed some ways
using single camera video

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and being able to convert
that data into coordinates

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that we could compute
joint angles with.

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These are techniques that
could be used by practitioners

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in any area where
they can't afford

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or they can't bring a
$100,000 motion capture system

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to where they are doing
their data collection.

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They could do what we did
for sports or for rehab

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or anything like that.

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So we've developed
some methodologies

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that could be useful for
people on the ground.

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>> Lori Meggs: Anything else
you want to say about it?

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>> Yeah, the ground reaction
force data that's the other part

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this is what's really important
for the exercise efficiency.

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What we find is that the
exercise forces that you get

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in zero G are much
less than in 1 G,

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but they increase with speed.

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So, what we want and would

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like our astronauts
to do is run faster.

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If we can have faster running,
maybe they do interval training

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where they run fast and
rest and run fast and rest,

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they could get a better
response for their bone growth

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than if they run in slower speed
for a longer period of time.

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>> Lori Meggs: What's
the reaction to that

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when you tell an
astronaut run faster?

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[Laughter]

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>> Some of them they
think that's great

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because they're runners; some
of them maybe aren't so excited

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because that's not their
favorite sort of exercise,

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but we're hoping that
we can show these data

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to the astronauts now.

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So, instead of us
just saying run faster

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because we think it's good,
we can show them run faster

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because we know it's good.

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>> Lori Meggs: And if you would
like to find out more about this

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and other human research
investigations,

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go to nasa.gov slash station.

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We have an astronaut
there at the helm today,

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a [inaudible] operation's
director T.J. Cramer [phonetic]