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recently my colleague pat ryan spoke

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with dr john charles the associate

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manager for the international science on

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nasa's human research program about the

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science plan for expeditions 43-46

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and asked him to identify the greatest

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concerns we have about how prolonged

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weightlessness affects a person

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the way weightlessness affects people

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after long periods in space is part of

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the problem and the rest of the problem

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of course is isolation and distance and

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things like that from family and support

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but the weightless problems are

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i think very interesting and they

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concern

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loss of bone mass that is the loss of

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bone structure and integrity because the

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bones are no longer hefting around our

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bodies and under one g

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the muscles that make those bones move

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also get weaker the cardiovascular

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system which doesn't have to pump blood

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uh from the lower body into the upper

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part of the body because of

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pooling because of gravity

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also has certain changes not so much in

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the force of the pumping but in the

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in the

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the

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effects of gravity of course notices

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right away that weightlessness doesn't

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happen anymore or weightlessness happens

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and gravity doesn't happen anymore

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all of these changes uh occur fairly

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quickly in flight but we're now looking

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at the long-term manifestations of these

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very very physical changes

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along with the psychological aspects and

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other aspects of just being in a

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confined environment in a great distance

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from from support and so forth do we

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anticipate that all of these

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bad effects get worse the longer that

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you stay would it be worse in months

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seven or eight than it is in two or

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three

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well you know we're doing this one year

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mission and that the goal is to try and

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answer exactly that question we have

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always in the life sciences assumed that

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the next increment of duration is where

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the cliff is is where the brick wall is

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that we're going to run into and so far

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we've really not seen it so far the

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human body has proved remarkably

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adaptable to

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the most novel environmental situation

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that is possible to conceive of and that

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is the absence of gravity gravity has

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influenced everything on the earth in

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terms of biology from the very beginning

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of

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and now we're finding that the those

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resources that the body has to take care

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of itself in different attitudes

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different postures different

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environments on the ground are also

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pretty good for living in the absence of

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gravity as long as you maintain pressure

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and temperature and food and things like

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that

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so we're we're not yet encountering the

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the cliff you know there's no here be

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dragons on the map that we've

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encountered so far

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we're finding that many of the changes

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that occur in the human body

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physiologically occur

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fairly soon that is within days weeks

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even months of time and weightlessness

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but after three or four or five months

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our bodies would be pretty well

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accommodated to weightlessness as far as

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we know

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now that's a big caveat because

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we don't have many other

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data points beyond those first few

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months but things seem to level off and

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we seem to be approaching something that

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some people call a space normal state

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that is you're through the the turmoil

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in the uproar of the adaptation and the

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accommodation process

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but there's always the what if you know

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if we're talking about two and a half

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year round trips to mars all of it in

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gravity less than earth's gravity

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weightlessness for the transits out and

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back and one third of a g while you're

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on the planet of mars

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wouldn't it be nice to know ahead of

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time before you embark on those missions

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whether gravity is whether there is a

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bugaboo out there that's gravity related

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so we're we're gradually expanding the

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the flight durations the space station

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has given us a huge database on roughly

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six month durations and so far like i

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say not many bugaboos but there was one

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and that is the visual problem that

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people have heard about before

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which seems to have manifested itself

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along about month three or four or five

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in these six-month missions

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and it was a bit of a surprise because

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people had not really reported that

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degree of visual change previously now

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we're trying now the human research

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program is trying to understand what is

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unique about the current situation about

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the crew members about the environment

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about whatever else may be causing a

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visual change so we can understand that

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problem and also so we can generalize to

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other problems what other problems have

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we missed that will manifest themselves

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on say

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month 13 or month 20 of a long duration

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flight we're trying to avoid those

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problems on this mission for for kelly

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and kornienko how do you take data about

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what's happening to them in order to

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to study later and

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learn what you need to learn

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we use all the techniques available in

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21st century medicine including nowadays

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genetic analysis you've heard of the

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twin study that craig kundra my

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colleague talked to you about recently

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that is really an application of

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individualized 21st century medicine to

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understand the effects of long-term

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space flight on

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very specific individuals but we also

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use the other techniques that many of us

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are familiar with from visits to the

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doctor's office the blood pressure the

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ecg the the stress testing we have

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treadmills and other ways to stress test

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individuals in flight we have

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blood draws nobody can forget the blood

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draws the astronauts absolutely the most

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favorite activity to do has to be

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punctured and have blood drawn in flight

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and those are going to be

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really well springs of of new and

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valuable information on the effects of

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long-duration flights on these uh these

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two crew members uh doing the one-year

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mission but they will allow us to to

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form a commonality with a large

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six-month database we also have but wait

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there's more we also have

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a large uh set of

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of

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psychological and psychosocial

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investigations because the human

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research program

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considers the psychological psychosocial

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aspects of long-duration flights off

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beyond earth's orbit and off to mars as

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some of the most significant the most

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profound potential problems that that we

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might encounter and the funny thing

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about the psychological

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changes that may occur in flight is that

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you don't have them until suddenly

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you've got them in a big way so the

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trick is to develop techniques that will

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monitor crew members psychological

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states and their ability to form teams

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and their ability to sleep which is an

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important contributor to psychological

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health and then

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using those techniques that we may have

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developed on the ground and in isolation

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studies apply those to long-duration

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missions to validate them in the actual

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flight environment but part of the study

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now is to find out just exactly what

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they're capable of doing when they do

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return to earth at the end of the year

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yes pat the the goal of that

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investigation which is called field test

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is to understand the capabilities of

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astronauts immediately after landing

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from a long duration period in space

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flight which would mimic the transit

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time from the earth to mars

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to allow us to to help the the

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spacecraft designers for future mars

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vehicles understand what they have to

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build into the landing vehicle and how

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much they can expect the astronauts to

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do immediate after landing this is a

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very exciting and actually a very

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i want to say popular it's it's

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enthusiastically supported by the crew

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members the astronaut office as well as

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a scientific community because it's a

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good demonstration of what people can do

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immediately after landing and it has

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operational and scientific benefits and

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i think it's also interesting to note

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that in in this case in the one year

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crew a lot of these investigations are

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joint work by american and russian

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scientists in ways that

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hadn't happened on this project up to

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now that's exactly right in fact these

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were two separate ideas that were

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promoted by the the all of the uh space

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station program managers the u.s russian

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european japanese canadian they said we

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would like to understand what happens on

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a one year mission and we'd also like to

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see more joint activities between the

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partners taking advantage of the

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resources that each brings to the space

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station and breaking down any artificial

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barriers between

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the modules so we can move hardware back

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and forth crew members back and forth

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take advantage of of equipment that's in

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one and crew members that are in the

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other and so forth we quickly melded

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those two

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efforts into one so the one-year mission

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and the breaking down barriers became

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the same activity and we're using this

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one-year mission as a highly visible

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demonstration of how to do that

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once we get these techniques these

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lessons learned figured out we hope to

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be doing this on every iss mission

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beyond the one-year mission so that we

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take advantage as i say of the resources

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everybody brings and provide benefits to

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all the partners be very exciting to see

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how it goes thank you for uh letting us

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get a look into what's going to happen