What living in space

does to your body

A spotlight on the physical effects of living in space and time required
for recovery from its negative impact.

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On June 18, three ISS astronauts are completing their six-month mission in low orbit and returning to Earth. As the ISS Expedition 47 is terminating, Al Jazeera breaks down the physical effects of living in space on human bodies.

 

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    Space, the final frontier. From Jules Verne's seminal novel From Earth to Moon, to George Melies' iconic silent 1902 movie inspired by the same book, space has always been a fascination for humankind, a place for the great unknown and a constant reminder of how small we are in the Universe.

    "From this vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest," declared astrophysicist Carl Sagan in 1990. He was marking the Voyager 1 spacecraft's moment at the edge of the Solar System, just before it entered interstellar space - the greatest distance covered by a human-made machine.

    But it was a machine after all. And human beings, as the most complex machines that we know, are nowhere near to travelling such a distance.

    The International Space Station (ISS), the largest artificial body in orbit, has been hosting astronauts since 2000 and helping humanity to unlock the mysteries of life in space as well as its effects on the human body.

    The ISS is not the first of its own kind, but it is the first joint programme in space exploration to involve the best minds of humankind. After thousands of experiments to test the effects of microgravity and other spatial factors, scientists are tirelessly preparing Earthers to expand our horizon, and push the frontiers forward.

    While our current technology is allowing us to send robots and spacecraft to nearby astronomical formations, our bodies are not capable of undertaking comprehensive missions. Such long trips would have drastic consequences on spacefarers, effects that astronauts in the ISS and scientists on the ground have been researching for decades.

Body parts affected

Each individual body part suffers from the conditions in space to varying degrees. As the duration of stay increases, the damage becomes more difficult to completely erase.

MILDLY

AFFECTED

SOMEWHAT

AFFECTED

SERIOUSLY

AFFECTED

HEAVILY

AFFECTED

SELECT A CATEGORY

SELECT A CATEGORY

Recovery period

Some negative effects of living in space disappear as soon as an astronaut lands on Earth. But depending on the time spent in space, it becomes more difficult to recover from long-term consequences.

STATE OF ASTRONAUT HEALTH

Arriving

from space

A week

after arrival

Two weeks

after arrival

A month

after arrival

Three months

after arrival

Six months (and more)

after arrival

Upon landing on Earth, astronauts’ spines begin contracting instantaneously with gravity and they return to normal height pretty quickly. Their blood pressure also normalises in a few days. Excess flatulence is no longer an issue.

Disorientation and balancing issues, as well as motion sickness symptoms, disappear. Astronauts’ sleep is back to normal, and usually they start sleeping two more hours than normally in space.

The immune system recovers greatly, the risk of sickness owing to space-weakened immunity decreases and functional characteristics are back to normal. The production rate of red blood cells is within the norms again. One fifth of the body fluid lost during the spaceflight is regained, along with the volume of blood.

The muscle reformation is almost complete and near the levels of pre-spaceflight.

The immediate problems related to eyesight, especially proneness to cataracts is over. Skin redevelopment is complete and their body mass is back to the levels on Earth.

Spending six months in space is brutal on human bodies. The effects of skeletal deformation last for years, and it takes three to four years to regain lost bone density. The risk of bone fractures will remain high for the rest of the astronauts’ lives. Although the ISS is being protected by Earth's magnetosphere, which greatly shields the astronauts from fatal galactic rays, the exposure to radiation is still too high. The trio will be susceptible to increased risk of cancer, central nervous system effects and degenerative diseases for years, if not a lifetime.

ISS missions

The ISS is crewed with six people for most of the year. A round of three
astronauts and cosmonauts arrive in the space station every six months with an overlap of three months to work together with the previous trio.

Tim Peake

British astronaut

Expedition 46-47

Yuri Malenchenko

Russian cosmonaut

Expedition 46-47

Timothy Kopra

American astronaut

Expedition 46-47

TOTAL TIME SPENT IN SPACE

186

days

TOTAL TIME SPENT IN SPACE

828

days

TOTAL TIME SPENT IN SPACE

244

days

SERVING TIME IN SPACE

186

days

SERVING TIME IN SPACE

186

days

SERVING TIME IN SPACE

186

days

TOTAL HOURS OF SPACEWALK

4h43'

TOTAL HOURS OF SPACEWALK

34h52'

TOTAL HOURS OF SPACEWALK

13h31'

As Timothy Kopra, Tim Peake and Yuri Malenchenko of Expedition 47 complete their mission on June 18, the remaining trio of Aleksey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeffrey Williams will assume the Expedition 48, and they are to be joined by another round of astronauts and cosmonauts on July 7.

Aleksey Ovchinin

Russian cosmonaut

Expedition 47-48

SERVING TIME IN SPACE

170*

days

TOTAL TIME  IN SPACE

170

days

*

TOTAL HOURS OF SPACEWALK

-

Jeffrey Williams

American astronaut

Expedition 47-48

TOTAL TIME  IN SPACE

522

days

SERVING TIME IN SPACE

170*

days

TOTAL HOURS OF SPACEWALK

19h09'

Oleg Skripochka

Russian cosmonaut

Expedition 47-48

SERVING TIME IN SPACE

170*

days

TOTAL TIME  IN SPACE

329

days

*

TOTAL HOURS OF SPACEWALK

16h40'

*

As of November 7

*

Mission to Mars

TIME SPENT ON LOW ORBIT

438

days

TIME SPENT IN SPACE

879

days

Valeri Polyakov

Gennady Padalka

MOST TIME IN SPACE

IN A SINGLE ENTRY

MOST CUMULATIVE TIME IN SPACE

According to conservative estimates, the first human expedition mission to Mars is expected to take place by the mid-2030s. With the current space technology, a one-way trip to Mars would take about five to six months, which is more than double that on a round trip. NASA estimates that a mission to Mars would take about 30 months in total.

 

While the average time spent for an astronaut in the ISS is about six months, Russian cosmonauts are record holders at living in space for the longest period uninterrupted, and for spending most days in space on a cumulative scale.

 

Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days in low orbit between January 1994 and March 1995 when he was serving on the now-defunct Russian space station MIR. He was a part of the experiment to assess the long-term physiological and psychological effects of living in microgravity for a prolonged period of time. The findings were used to assess the potential challenges for manned missions to Mars.

 

Gennady Padalka, another Russian cosmonaut, is the record holder for spending the most time in space with 879 days over five missions. He served on the MIR and the ISS.

 

In 2015, the United States and Russia launched a research programme called One-Year Mission to assess the feasibility of a mission to Mars and beyond. American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko spent almost a year in the ISS and successfully returned to Earth after spending 340 days in space.

between January 9, 1994 - March 22, 1995

between August 13, 1998 - August 28, 1999

between December 21, 1987 - December 21, 1998

438

days

879

days

828

days

803

days

380

days

366

days

Valeri Polyakov

Gennady Padalka

Yuri Malenchenko

Sergei Krikalev

Sergei Avdeyev

Vladimir Titov,

Musa Manarov

Research and text

Cagri Ozdemir

 

Sources and images

NASA, ESA, Flickr Creative Commons

 

Design

@konstantinosant

 

Production

@AJlabs