Support our Kickstarter

Zero Gravity Achilles Heel

Bill M
weight-200.jpg

Astronauts traveling to Mars, or someday beyond, would experience a plethora of challenges and hurdles.  Extreme muscle loss is one danger that will be difficult to overcome.  Constant daily exercising during long space voyages will be required, but may not be enough.  A recent study's results show that newer, more innovative exercise techniques in zero gravity need to be developed if future long range missions are to succeed.

Image Credit : NASA

Story via Space.com

 

Tags:

Comments

varicose vein treatment45

Submitted by varicose vein treatment45 on Sat, 08/28/2010 - 04:17.
That is an excellent post. I accidently stumbled across your blog and found it to be very interesting. Thanks a lot.Keep up the good works. varicose vein treatment45

Muscle Weight and Varicose Veins

Submitted by Vein Specialist on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 21:31.
Muscle contraction is one of the two mechanisms for pumping blood against the force of gravity from our legs towards the heart; the other being the presence of valves in the veins. In fact, deep veins do not develop varicosities because they are surrounded by muscles. Accordingly, although while in space varicose veins should not develop despite muscle loss, because blood will not pool in the legs, the potential for developing varicose veins will be very high once astronauts return to the Earth. Immediate muscle toning through exercising is therefore crucial as soon as astronauts arrive on the Earth's surface.