[Music] Humans explore Earth, diving deep beneath
its waters and flying high above its surface. For more than 20 years, humans have lived
beyond Earth's boundaries. Have you ever wondered what
living in space would do to your body? For this and more, find out next on Real World.
Our exploration of living in space starts by examining the tiny units that make up our bodies.
Cells make up all the components in your body, and they keep you going without you even having
to think about it. Let's find out more about how cells work and how they keep us alive.
I study what happens to astronauts in space, which means I need to study what happens to their cells
in space. So cells are important because they are the basic unit of structure and function.
That means that every living organism, including me and you and astronauts in space,
are made of cells. So if you take a cell and look at it through a microscope, you will see
that it is packed with different structures. These structures are called organelles. And
these organelles are like different factories in a city. Each organelle has a function that helps the
cell survive. So I like the big picture because, basically, mitochondria and other organelles
are parts of the cell. Cells form tissues. Tissues form organs. Organs form organisms, for example,
humans. So if I want to answer the big question of how space flight affects the human body,
I can start by studying how space flight affects the organelles of the cells.
So clearly, our cells are super important. They make sure our bodies keep doing all the things
that need to be done every day here on Earth. But what happens if you leave Earth and go into
space? How do our human cells function in space? Does anything different happen to them up there?
What is different in space compared to on Earth? On Earth, we have gravity, and
all of us, which means all our cells have evolved to live in gravity. In space, especially in orbit
on the international space station, the gravity is extremely low, and they're not used to the
lack of gravity at all, which makes them behave differently and get more damaged. For example,
they are not able to renew themselves quite as well, making them look as if they were older than
normal. Now on Earth, we are protected from space radiation by the magnetic field of the Earth,
which stops radioactive particles from getting to us. The space station is just close enough to the
Earth that it mostly fits inside the magnetic field. But on missions to the Moon and to Mars,
they will be exposed to space radiation. So other scientists and I have discovered that space
radiation causes mutations. A mutation is damaged in the DNA of the cell that would be the code that
describes all the functions of the cell. If a cell is mutated because of radiation, then it may die,
or it may develop in a wrong way and become a wrong kind of cell; for example, a cancer cell.
In addition, space radiation causes damage to the cells, similarly to what an injury would do to a
whole organism, which causes inflammation which can hurt both the brain and the immune system.
So NASA is studying what happens to our cells in space.
But how do they know how cells change in different settings? How do they keep track of the changes?
We can look at the cell through a microscope and count the number of mutations. But also,
we can count how many cells have been affected by radioactive particles, and we can calculate
it as a percentage. So we would compare the number of cells that are damaged to the total
number of cells to find out what percentage of the cells are damaged by space radiation.
This is a very good example of quantitative data, which means the type of data that we can count. In
addition to quantitative data, we also work with qualitative data. For example, if you look at the
cells in the tissue, do they change shape? Do they connect to each other in a different way after
they were exposed to space radiation compared to before they were exposed to space radiation?
We need to know how spaceflight and space radiation affects the normal functions of
cells. Then we can work to find out how to reduce the harmful effects of space flight
so that astronauts could travel to Mars without worrying about how space radiation affects their
cells. So who does this work? Everyone! I am one member of a huge team of people working together.
In all science people work together to discover new things, similarly to how it takes a lot of
cells with different individual functions working together to make organs that make the human body.
Well, that was ex-CELL-ent. Cells truly are the building blocks of life.
We are who we are, thanks to the structure and function of cells. And thanks to NASA,
we're learning as much as we can to help prepare for current and future space travel.
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics are all working together to help make exploring
new worlds as safe as possible for us and ourselves. See you next time, on Real World.
you