It's the moment you've all been waiting for!
YOU CAN GO TO SPAAAAAACEEEE!
But there's kind of a wicked side effect…
You'll get stupid.
Every month stories come out with civilian space travel being JUST over the horizon.
When is it going to GET here already?!
In 2004, when SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize, the headlines heralded an era of,
"space tourism," and the media predicted civilian space travel was within our grasp.
There are companies that say this could be THE year, but so far it has not come to fruition.
And to be honest, are you sure you want to do it?
Governments around the world work to minimize the risks to space travel, and without a bottom
line or investors, governments can move slowly and build huge levels of safety.
Private companies are built on the idea of competition and an open market, meaning they
inherently take more risks -- but risks when it comes to the dangers of space travel?
// Nope.
Nope.
I know what you're thinking…
We're humans, we live for the risk and relish the rewards, right?
Exploration and curiosity is part of being a human!
Okay, to that I say, there's a litany of other reasons not to go into space: space travel
makes you weak, stupid, sick and irradiated.
After more than 50 years of human spaceflight, we know space travel can mess with your vision
and your mood and can even dull your reasoning and reaction times.
Your eyeballs change shape in space, and your vision may change as well.
Muscles and bones become weaker over time too, atrophying due to lack of use.
A NASA study of missions from 2002-2005 found, even with a rigorous exercise program, after
on one to six months in space, astronauts muscle volume decreased by 13 percent, and
power by nearly one third!
And it's not just muscles and bones.
A study in the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research by NASA found astronaut's immune
systems get a little freaky too.
Some immune cells overdo it, some underdo it, causing increased allergies and allowing
viruses that would remain dormant on Earth to get an asymptomatic foothold.
But that's just for long-duration astronauts, the short-term tourists ALSO have to worry
about… orienting ourselves to the environment.
When we don't have an idea of what DOWN or UP is, like in microgravity, the brain gets
confused, and it takes longer to react.
Some astronauts felt like they were spinning or falling during their entire trip.
We're so hard-wired to look for the Earth under our feet, even trained, professional
astronauts get confused or lost.
Without proper training, average peeps may have an even stronger reaction.
Another thing short term-ers have to deal with is cosmic radiation.
A NASA paper on space radiation said, on average at solar minimum an astronaut could receive
160 milliSieverts of radiation over six months -- a chest x-ray is one milliSievert.
So that's like a chest x-ray every day!
Of course, most of these things would never affect the casual space adventurer who goes
up there one time, but people living on a lunar colony, or on a mission to Mars will
definitely have to deal with some of these.
We have no idea how humans will fare outside of the crib that is planet Earth!
Even with the dangers, would you want to get out there into
the stars?!