Humans are not easy on space. The vacuum, the cold, and the radiation are all avoidable. A lack of gravity can cause astronauts to lose bone density. RIDGE stands for space radiation, isolation and confinement, distance from Earth, gravity fields, and hostile and closed environments, and is an acronym created by NASA.
Being in space destroys your blood, according to new research. Something about space causes the human body to perform hemolysis at a higher rate than back on Earth.
This phenomenon has been studied. Guy Trudel, a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation at The Ottawa Hospital, got involved in the paper because it was part of a suite of problems that astronauts face when they come back to terra firma.
When astronauts first arrive in space, they were thought to have space anemia because of the shifting fluids in their upper bodies. It was expected that their bodies would destroy 10 percent of red blood cells to get things back into balance after they lost 10 percent of the liquid in their blood vessels. People thought things would return to normal after 10 days. The hemolysis was the primary response to being in space. He said that their results were a bit of a surprise.
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No one can hear you breathe into a can.
Trudel worked with 14 astronauts on the International Space Station to study space anemia. The astronauts brought specialized canisters and exhaled into them at four different intervals, at five days, 12 days, three months, and just before heading home. They brought the canisters back down to Earth after their primary mission was over.
The researchers looked at the astronauts' breath using a high-resolution gas chromatograph, which measures the amount of carbon monoxide they were producing after different amounts of time in space. Carbon monoxide is created when a red blood cell is hemolyzed. This isn't a perfect connection, as other bodily processes can result in the production of carbon monoxide, like some functions of muscles and livers. Trudel said that 85 percent of carbon monoxide produced by a human comes from hemolysis.
The astronauts destroyed 3 million red blood cells every second. The rate on Earth is 2 million every second, which is 54 percent higher.
The concentration of red blood cells in an astronauts body is less than in the human body, but the concentration stays the same. When a human returns to Earth, their bodies regain the fluid that they lost to gravity. He said that you need more fluid in your blood vessels.
Five of 13 astronauts who had blood drawn upon landing were still clinically anemic. Their red blood cell count continued to grow. Trudel's team performed the same test a year later and found that red blood cell destruction was still 30 percent higher in the astronauts. The longer astronauts stay in space, the more space they will get sick of.
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