News Space may send you blind?

[Suzy]

"Blurred vision plagues astronauts who spend months in space" - recent article about changed vision that some astronauts have experienced after stays in orbit, with implications for long-term missions. (via)

 

[Mojave]

That's not good. Good luck to the scientists and doctors who are researching this issue.

 

[Kyle]

Answer for Mars missions - Artificial gravity by spinning!

I personally, liked the tether idea. 2001 had a good idea too.

 

[T.Neo]

"Artificial gravity by spinning" has its problems.

You start out thinking it's a "great idea". But when you get into the problems you encounter trying to spin the spacecraft for artificial gravity, it gets less and less like a great idea and more like a necessary evil... :shifty:

 

[Codz]

:dry::dry:

"Artificial gravity by spinning" has its problems.

You start out thinking it's a "great idea". But when you get into the problems you encounter trying to spin the spacecraft for artificial gravity, it gets less and less like a great idea and more like a necessary evil... :shifty:

Always a pessimist eh T Neo?:dry:

 

[Keatah]

Apparently there was quite a bit of anecdotal "Evidence" but the whole thing was pooh-pooed and not made widely known. That is until an astronaut made a big stink in 2005 about the whole shebang!

 

[T.Neo]

Always a pessimist eh T Neo?

No, I'm just commenting on the results of my personal considerations of that sort of concept. There are problems, you can solve them, but there will be an engineering cost. Maybe you will even have to solve them.

Noting the difficulty of something that is difficult is not pessimism.

Apparently there was quite a bit of anecdotal "Evidence" but the whole thing was pooh-pooed and not made widely known. That is until an astronaut made a big stink in 2005 about the whole shebang!

Oh no! Space program conspiracy! We are all doomed! :uhh:

 

[Suzy]

I wonder if the cosmonauts who had long stays in space - Valeriy Polyakov and Sergei Krikalyov - were affected? Polyakov did some experiments about the effects of microgravity on vision - I found a PDF online a few years ago, "Presbiopia in Extreme Conditions" (attached).

 

[orb]

O-F Staff Note: Thread cleaned from off-topic.

17 off-topic posts have been moved to "[Discussion] The next 100 years.." thread.

Please keep the discussion on the topic.

 

[Urwumpe]

actually, in my lecture notes, it is still mentioned that at least short-term stays in space improve vision. But likely only in one direction, so for some people, it might get worse. The eye balls are getting slightly more spherical in space.

 

[T.Neo]

It sounds like they are saying it is some form of papilledema, or at least a papilledema-like condition.

Could research into papilledima on Earth be leveraged in researching the nature of this condition in space? Presumably a means of reducing intracranial pressure.

 

[Ark]

Sounds like we need to get serious about artificial gravity.

 

[Ghostrider]

Could research into papilledima on Earth be leveraged in researching the nature of this condition in space?

Wait. Are you suggesting we send people on Earth? I thought everybody agreed that the place is just too hostile to life.

 

[T.Neo]

Wait. Are you suggesting we send people on Earth? I thought everybody agreed that the place is just too hostile to life.

Considering that pretty much everyone alive is currently on Earth, and that most people who suffer and have suffered from papilledema are on Earth, it does not sound like that much of a stretch to me.

 

[n0mad23]

Actually, if you read the link that Suzy posted closely, you'll find a base disagreement between both papers. According to "PRESBYOPIA IN EXTREME CONDITIONS", you'll find the danger to vision is from UV and cosmic radiation. In terms of presbyopia, the authors seem to suggest that freefall (or zero-g) is actually beneficial for combating presbyopia.

 

[Keatah]

Is this "space eye disease" at all related to glaucoma? Or could it go in that direction?

 

[Suzy]

The issue is in the news again: "Astronauts' eyeballs deformed by long missions in space, study finds" (Guardian), MSNBC.com.

 

[Keatah]

All the more reason to stay on Earth till we can build ships like in Star Trek. There aren't any reports of crewmembers of the Enterprise going blind just from being aboard it.

 

[Ghostrider]

There aren't any reports of crewmembers of the Enterprise going blind just from being aboard it.

They went blind from too much holodeck.

 

[boogabooga]

Isn't this exactly what they were afraid of during Project Mercury in the 1960s?