Becoming an astronaut calls for best 20/20 imaginative and prescient, however unfortunately, the consequences of area can motive astronauts to go back to Earth with degraded eyesight. Now, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have advanced a slumbering bag that that might save you or lessen the ones issues via way of means of efficaciously sucking fluid out of astronauts’ heads.
More than 1/2 of of NASA astronauts that went to the International Space Station (ISS) for greater than six months have advanced imaginative and prescient issues to various degrees. In one case, astronaut John Philips lower back from a six month stint approximately the ISS in 2005 together along with his imaginative and prescient decreased from 20/20 to 20/100, because the BBC reported.
For multi-12 months journeys to Mars, for example, this may come to be an trouble. “It could be a catastrophe if astronauts had such extreme impairments that they could not see what they may be doing and it compromised the mission,” lead researcher Dr. Benjamin Levine instructed the BBC.
Fluids have a tendency to build up withinside the head while you sleep, however on Earth, gravity pulls them back off into the frame while you get up. In the low gravity of area, though, greater than a 1/2 of gallon of fluid collects withinside the head. That in flip applies stress to the eyeball, inflicting knocking down which could result in imaginative and prescient impairment — a ailment known as spaceflight-related neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS. (Dr. Levine determined SANS via way of means of flying most cancers sufferers aboard zero-G parabolic flights. They nonetheless had ports of their heads to get hold of chemotherapy, which gave researchers an get entry to factor to degree stress inside their brains.)
To fight SANS, researchers collaborated with out of doors equipment producer REI to expand a slumbering bag that suits across the waist, enclosing the decrease frame. A vacuum cleaner-like suction tool is then activated that attracts fluid in the direction of the feet, stopping it from collecting withinside the head.
Around a dozen humans volunteered to check the generation, and the effects had been positive. Some questions want to be spoke back earlier than NASA brings the generation aboard the ISS, inclusive of the gold standard quantity of time astronauts need to spend withinside the slumbering bag every day. They additionally want to decide if each astronaut need to use one, or simply the ones susceptible to growing SANS.
Still, Dr. Levine is hopeful that SANS will now not be an trouble by the point NASA is prepared to visit Mars. “This is possibly one of the maximum mission-essential clinical troubles that has been determined withinside the ultimate decade for the gap program,” he stated in a statement.