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the upcoming mission that we've been

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talking a lot about the year-long

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mission by Scott Kelly and Mikhail

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Kornienko is going to focus a lot of

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energy on gathering information about

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how living in space for one year affects

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them but the work won't end when they

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come back from space in fact for dr.

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Miller droshky who's joining us today it

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will just be beginning he is at the

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co-principal investigator of a of a

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joint experiment with the Russians

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called filled tests and that's short for

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recovery of functional since so since

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the sensorimotor Wright performance

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following long-duration spaceflight he's

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also the chief of Neuroscience at NASA

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and he's going to tell us a little bit

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about that experiment thanks so much for

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joining us meal good morning all right

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well I know that we know a lot about how

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spaceflight affects astronauts when they

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get back to ground back to the ground

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but can you tell us a little bit about

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what some of those effects are well it's

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a it's really a pretty complicated

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question you're asking it's the simple

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answer is that most of the changes we

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see are due to a number of different

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factors one is that the time that's

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spent on orbit as well as the

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transitions from the Earth's

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gravitational field to the the

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weightlessness of flight and then from

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weightless back to the Earth's

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gravitational field again that's where

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we see the biggest changes primarily

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because the the organs that are

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responsible for our spatial orientation

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and balance located in the inner ear are

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affected by these kinds of changes as

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are the pressure sensors for example in

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the bottom of the feet the astronauts

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have been unloaded now in in this case

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for six months or more okay and this is

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something we studied a good bit during

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the shuttle days right but not so much

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during Space Station time yes that's

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right we had a really nice ongoing

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program with

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the shuttle flights but we looked at

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various components associated with

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balance and returned from space light as

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well as other systems in the body and

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then we had a very nice program that was

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done with the Russians that we're

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looking both at the shuttle and the MIR

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flight okay so this is work that's been

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ongoing for a while but we're gonna I

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guess amp it up a little bit with Kelly

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and Kornienko staying a whole year in

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space yes the importance of that is

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really looking at how people are going

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to be able to perform after very long

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duration flights say for example a trip

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to Mars right because we want them not

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only to be ok when they get back to

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earth but also be able to function when

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they're on Mars right correct ok well so

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what what did the crew members actually

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have to do when they get back from space

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to take part in this study well we began

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this study with what's called a pilot

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field test simply because I think there

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was some concern whether or not we could

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actually get the crews to perform in the

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various testing that we were going to be

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asking them to do okay and the pilot

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field test essentially did some very

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simple measurements to start with that

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were titrated from easy to some very

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complex and difficult ones for example

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the simplest is simply rising from a

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chair unaided okay and this is right

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after they returned right before they

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even left the landing field that's

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correct is immediately after they we

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take them from the Soyuz capsule where

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they're put in the recovery chair were

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you know TV ceremonies and then into a

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medical tent and begin testing there

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okay and then does it continue for

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longer after that or is that pretty much

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the end of that part of the test what

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we're interested in

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is developing a time constant of

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recovery

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okay the various functions so we test in

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the field or if it's impossible as it

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was this last flight same with the

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weather in Tarragona

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or in caucus 10 being what it was kind

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of often right March is very bad time so

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we test at the airport that's

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transferred to either in a carry ganda

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or digestives con so you've done several

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of these pilot tests and they've gone

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okay you're confident that you'll be

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able to do the same with with Scott and

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McGill yes we are we the Russians

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actually our Russian counterparts have

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been doing part of the advanced field

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test that we don't do so we feel pretty

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confident that we'll be able to carry

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out these measurements but to finish

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what I was what I was saying just

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briefly we test again at the at the

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refueling station in Scotland on their

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way home and then when they arrive in

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Houston

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okay all right so we're waiting on a

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long time to get just a few not even a

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whole day's worth of tests done yes

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hopefully that'll get you some good

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results I know that part of this is that

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you're working pretty closely with the

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Russian researchers on the test why is

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that important to the to the study well

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it's important because the Russians

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bring a number of tests that we

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typically don't do and in looking at

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returning crew members and their ability

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to recover what kind of tests can you

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say for example they do some things that

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are ask the crew members to perform some

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relatively difficult maneuvers like

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getting up from a chair and walking as

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quickly as they can

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turning around the corner and then

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stepping over obstacles in their way

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okay interesting

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all right well are there any benefits to

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the research for those of us Beck your

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honor yes there hopefully there will be

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when you look at our population

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in the world I mean we are somewhat of

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an aging society and we have people

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coming back from battlefields that have

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difficulty because of injuries and so

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forth take for example the simple

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sit-to-stand test that I was talking

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about it's a very common thing that

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everybody does every day multiple times

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but for a returning astronaut for a

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person 55 years or older for example or

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people with disabilities it's not an

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easy exercise many times and failure to

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be able to do this results in

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dysfunction in the sensory motor system

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perhaps institutionalization and in the

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worst cases even death

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okay all right well it sounds like very

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interesting and important research we

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appreciate you coming in and tell us a