DALLAS (AP) — Space tourists experience some of the same bodily changes as astronauts who spend months in orbit, according to new studies published Tuesday.
These changes returned to normal when the amateurs returned to Earth, the researchers reported.
Research about four space tourists is included in a series of studies on the health effects of space travel, down to the molecular level. The findings paint a clearer picture of how people — who don’t undergo years of training as astronauts — adapt to weightlessness and space radiation, the researchers said.
“This will allow us to be better prepared when we send humans into space for any reason,” said Allen Liu, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the research.
NASA and others have long studied the cost of space travel for astronauts, including one-year residents of the International Space Station, but there has been less attention to space tourists. The first tourist visit to the space station was in 2001, and opportunities for private space travel have increased in recent years.
A three-day charter flight in 2021 gave researchers the opportunity to examine how quickly the body reacts and adapts to space flight, said Susan Bailey, a radiation expert at Colorado State University who participated in the research.
While in space, the four passengers on the SpaceX flight, dubbed Inspiration4, collected samples of blood, saliva, skin and more. The researchers analyzed the samples and found sweeping changes in cells and the immune system. Most of these changes stabilized in the months after the four returned home, and researchers found that short-term spaceflight posed no significant health risks.
“This is the first time we’ve taken a cell-by-cell look at a crew as they go to space,” said researcher and co-author Chris Mason of Weill Cornell Medicine.
The articles, published Tuesday in the journals Nature and now part of a database, include the impact of spaceflight on the skin, kidneys and immune system. The results could help researchers find ways to counteract the negative effects of space travel, said Afshin Beheshti, a researcher at the Blue Marble Space Science Institute who participated in the work.
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AP video journalist Mary Conlon contributed from New York.
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