Scary News for Astronaut Hopefuls

[wanttaja]

Aerospace medicine took a big step when they trained two identical twins the same, sent one into orbit, and tested both to determine the effect of space travel on the human body.

The results are pretty grim.

Scott Kelly spent a year in orbit while his identical twin brother stayed on Earth, and when he came home NASA discovered his gene expression had changed in ways that didn't fully reverse

When Scott Kelly returned from 340 days aboard the International Space Station, NASA's twin study revealed that roughly seven percent of his gene expression had shifted in ways that never fully returned to baseline.

spacedaily.com

What it boils down to, is that unlike the press reporting of this test, the genes themselves did NOT change.

What did change is which genes were TURNED ON...called the "Gene Expression." After six months, most of them returned to the pre-launch condition. About seven percent didn't...and these were ALL RELATED TO THE STRESS OF BEING IN ORBIT. Such as the immune functions, bone repair, and hypoxia response.

Probably the biggest function impacted was the mitochondrial activity. No, I don't know what it is, either, but here's what the Space Daily said about it in the above article:

"Defects in mitochondria appear to underlie a surprising range of the physiological changes astronauts report on return, from immune suppression to muscle atrophy to the persistent fatigue that even short-duration crews describe. The twin study did not prove the mechanism. It pointed at it, hard."

In addition, there are "caps" on the chromosomes that get smaller when the being is under stress. Their shrinking is a sign of biological age.

Oddly enough, the "caps" actually ENLARGED on the twin in orbit....opposite to what you might expect. But just 48 hours after landing, his "caps" *collapsed*...shrinking down to below what would be baseline. That's accelerated biological aging.

What's really scary is that the study revealed cognitive decline. The twin in orbit suffered a reduction in reaction time, decision-making ability, and accuracy. What's scary is that, six months after return to Earth, he hadn't fully recovered.

Favorite quote from the article: "Spaceflight does not break one thing. It perturbs a network."

Finally, the article pointed out that the astronauts on the Space Station are protected from radiation by the Earth's magnetosphere. This avoids a lot of additional stress...but said protection goes away, when you send humans to Mars (~4 year round trip) or to colonize the Moon.

Scary stuff!

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Lindberg]

Perhaps now that we have evidence that spaceflight permanently accelerates cognitive decline, we can stop electing astronauts to Congress.

 

[Bob Noel]

Perhaps now that we have evidence that spaceflight permanently accelerates cognitive decline, we can stop effecting astronauts to Congress.

otoh - I submit that astronauts, even those with many days/weeks in order orbit, are still probably smarter than most of the congress critters.

edit to fix typo...

 

[Flatiowa]

Correlation does not equal causation… I would suspect differences in their food over being in “sustained free fall” as a more likely/larger contributor. (Unless I missed it, the article fails to clarify if the ground bound one ate only the same rations as the one is space to rule it out as a factor).

 

[schmookeeg]

You think the astronaut twin was chomping on bigmacs and the terrestrial twin was only doing salads?

 

[texasclouds]

I‘ve been a space cadet my entire life with no ill effects.

 

[Half Fast]

What's really scary is that the study revealed cognitive decline

It would be interesting to know how the decline progressed over time. Linear? Or was there a curve that would flatten at some point, or would the decline accelerate? Or did his cognitive abilities remain fairly stable in orbit, but decline quickly when he returned?

 

[wanttaja]

Correlation does not equal causation… I would suspect differences in their food over being in “sustained free fall” as a more likely/larger contributor. (Unless I missed it, the article fails to clarify if the ground bound one ate only the same rations as the one is space to rule it out as a factor).

Doing a search on the meals produced this AI output:

"In the NASA Twins Study, the spaceflight twin (Scott Kelly) consumed standard International Space Station (ISS) meals, consisting primarily of freeze-dried, thermo-stabilized, and pre-packaged foods. Meanwhile, the Earth-bound twin (Mark Kelly) consumed a controlled, monitored diet that mirrored Scott's intake to minimize variables between the two."

A non-AI result, from a Northwestern University article, says:

"A number of variables could have influenced Scott Kelly’s microbiome while in space, including microgravity, increased radiation, shifts in circadian rhythms, decreased sleep time, lack of air circulation, the stress of living in an enclosed space and an altered diet. Turek and Vitaterna were concerned that Scott Kelly’s diet in space, which comprised mostly freeze-dried, irradiated, pre-packaged foods, would decrease the diversity in his microbiome. Initially, diet does not appear to matter as much as the scientists worried.

"This result mirrored mouse studies the Northwestern pair conducted in the past. Whereas Scott and Mark Kelly did not eat the same foods during the yearlong study, mice in previous studies ate the exact same diet. Still, the space mice experienced shifts in their gut microbiomes compared to the control mice on Earth."

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Lindberg]

otoh - I submit that astronauts, even those with many days/weeks in order orbit, are still probably smarter than most of the congress critters.

edit to fix typo...

You have to start somewhere.

 

[Hengelo]

Fascinating, and scary!

 

[Mtns2Skies]

Probably the biggest function impacted was the mitochondrial activity. No, I don't know what it is, either, but here's what the Space Daily said about it in the above article:

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

 

[Domenick]

As Mtns2Skies says, mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells. They are organelles housed inside virtually all cells which convert your processed food nutrients into usable chemicals (ATP) to power all your biochemistry. Impaired function results in fatigue, organ failure, premature aging, cognitive decline, even death. Human liver cells have 1000-2000 mitochondria per cell.

The chromosome caps are called telomeres which are so-called long "nonsense repeats" protecting the last genes on the DNA strand. As stem cells divide, the DNA replication machinery (ribosome) is dragged along the DNA strand behind a locomotive-like structure. When the locomotive falls off the track (strand), the replication machine behind falls off before reaching the end. As such, every time a stem cell divides, the ends (telomeres) get shorter. Eventually, they are too short to protect the last genes and the cell stops dividing. Basically, cells have a biological clock called the "Hayflick limit" of about 50-70 divisions. The number of divisions is not an absolute number but a probabilistic process from birth.

Cancers escape the hayflick limit and become immortal. The oldest continuous cell culture on earth is HeLa cells from Henrietta Lacks, an unfortunate 1951 victim of cervical cancer. There are bits of Henrietta in labs all over the world. Humanity owes her a great deal.

Henrietta Lacks - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Shameless plug: I explain all this in "Do No Harm."

 

[Kwise01]

Very interesting, I'll have to check out that article. The next question that comes to mind is what is the amount of gravity needed to alleviate some or all of these adverse effects (or is this all from the radiation environment)?

 

[Half Fast]

Since we know that radiation exposure can lead to cancer, it seems increased exposure in space would be the leading suspect.

 

[Groundpounder]

Welp, there goes that plan. I was really hoping to be able to get with space chicks.

 

[wanttaja]

Welp, there goes that plan. I was really hoping to be able to get with space chicks.

Well, if the cognitive deterioration is real, you might have a better chance.....

Ron Wanttaja

 

[WDD]

Welp, there goes that plan. I was really hoping to be able to get with space chicks.

Well, if the cognitive deterioration is real, you might have a better chance.....

Ron Wanttaja

Ron, you're assuming that the "space chicks" he has in mind are human.

 

[AZEL]

Perhaps now that we have evidence that spaceflight permanently accelerates cognitive decline, we can stop electing astronauts to Congress.

I thought cognitive decline was a requirement of office.

(But, then again, I was better at STEM than Soc.Sci..)

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Very interesting, I'll have to check out that article. The next question that comes to mind is what is the amount of gravity needed to alleviate some or all of these adverse effects (or is this all from the radiation environment)?

Or the enclosed living space, or any number of other things. All we need to do to find out is build a half a dozen more space stations to isolate the variables, and find octuplets to live on them and earth to study the differences!

 

[Clip4]

I‘ve been a space cadet my entire life with no ill effects.

Or you do and don’t know it.

 

[Hacker]

Perhaps now that we have evidence that spaceflight permanently accelerates cognitive decline, we can stop electing astronauts to Congress.

By the standards of many who have been elected into those positions, that apparently makes them particularly eligible for the job.

 

[steingar]

What all the jargon means is that the spacebone Kelly got older. Telomere shrinkage (the telomeres are the caps on your chromosomes, the reason for their existence is complex and related to the mechanism of DNA replication) and mitochondrial dysfunction (mitchondria are specialized to carry out respiration, the process of getting energy out of our food). This is a really interesting experiment, and I hope someone as NASA follows up. If someone becomes biologically older, which Kelly has, does it affect lifespan? The twins should have a similar lifespan absent environmentally induced disease, so do they still even though one has been made artificially older?

And yes, being at 0G for months on end will do a number on your microbiome, as will moving, changing your diet or taking antibiotics. The bugs are selected to exist in your gut at 1G, at 0G they have to rearrange the pecking order. Probably messes up the Astronauts poo, thankfully NASA doesn't report on it.

And the saddest thing is even knowing all this my greatest regret in life is not pursuing an Astronaut career when I had the chance. Had I known I'd get blown up on Challenger or Columbia, I think I'd still have done it. Had I the chance at a one-way trip to Mars I'd do it.

Should woulda coulda. I am happy to say that the day my airplane tried HARD to kill me I realized I'd had a good run.

 

[FrequentPilot]

What all the jargon means is that the spacebone Kelly got older. Telomere shrinkage (the telomeres are the caps on your chromosomes, the reason for their existence is complex and related to the mechanism of DNA replication) and mitochondrial dysfunction (mitchondria are specialized to carry out respiration, the process of getting energy out of our food). This is a really interesting experiment, and I hope someone as NASA follows up. If someone becomes biologically older, which Kelly has, does it affect lifespan? The twins should have a similar lifespan absent environmentally induced disease, so do they still even though one has been made artificially older?

And yes, being at 0G for months on end will do a number on your microbiome, as will moving, changing your diet or taking antibiotics. The bugs are selected to exist in your gut at 1G, at 0G they have to rearrange the pecking order. Probably messes up the Astronauts poo, thankfully NASA doesn't report on it.

And the saddest thing is even knowing all this my greatest regret in life is not pursuing an Astronaut career when I had the chance. Had I known I'd get blown up on Challenger or Columbia, I think I'd still have done it. Had I the chance at a one-way trip to Mars I'd do it.

Should woulda coulda. I am happy to say that the day my airplane tried HARD to kill me I realized I'd had a good run.

You are definitely not the only one. I really hope that the FAA doesn't monitor these threads.