Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

NASA’s Version of Mr. Fusion

Researcher Stephen Anthony works with the new reactor prototype that could turn trash into gas. Image credit: NASA/Dmitri Gerondidakis

It probably won’t be able to fuel Doc Brown’s flux capacitor on his DeLorean time machine, but NASA researchers are hoping a new device that will be tested on the International Space Station can turn trash into power. The Trash to Gas Reactor is a miniature version of large waste incineration facilities on Earth that generate electricity or fuel. This could help with the accumulating trash on the ISS and be used on future missions beyond Earth orbit, as well as help the trash problem in areas of the world where there are neither large power plants nor garbage processing facilities.

“Not only will the effort on this help space missions but also on Earth because we have enough problems dealing with our own trash,” said Anne Caraccio, a chemical engineer working on the project.

The prototype of the Trash to Gas Reactor is a meter-long (3 foot-long) device that looks strikingly similar to the “Mr. Fusion” reactor in the second “Back to the Future” movie. Just like Doc Brown and Marty, astronauts can throw in things like food wrappers, used clothing, food scraps, tape, packaging and other garbage accumulated by the crew and the reactor will turn it into potential power, such as methane gas, or even oxygen or water.

The team developing the reactor is hoping to have their prototype ready to fly on the ISS by 2018 – which unfortunately doesn’t fit into the “Back to the Future” timeline: Emmett Brown travels to 2015 where he gets his Mr. Fusion and changes the future. But perhaps its Earth-bound counterpart could be ready in two years, in time for the Doc’s arrival from 1985.

“Back to the Future’s” Mr. Fusion. Via Theme Park Review.

OK, back to reality now, even though this does have a science fiction element to it…

A team led by Paul Hintze at the Kennedy Space Center has built an 80-pound small reactor to test theories about incinerating a variety of trash ranging from used clothes to uneaten food. The reactor holds more than three quarts of material and burns at about 1,000 degrees F, about twice the maximum temperature of an average household oven. It’s expected to take astronauts four hours to burn a day’s worth of trash from a crew of four.

The team estimates that during the course of a year in space – one half the length of time a mission to Mars is expected to take – trash processing for a crew of four would create about 2,200 pounds of methane fuel, enough to power a launch from the lunar surface, Hintze said.

“The longer the mission, the more applicable this technology is,” Hintze said. “If you’re just doing a two-week mission, you wouldn’t want to take along something like this because you wouldn’t get anything out of it.”

Converting garbage into fuel also would keep astronauts from turning their cramped space capsule into an orbiting landfill.

Paul Hintze is the researcher leading the trash-to-gas project at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image credit: NASA/Dmitri Gerondidakis

The experimental version of the reactor is made of steel, but the team expects to employ a different alloy for future versions, something that might be lighter but just as strong in order to withstand the high temperatures needed to break down the materials and destroy potential microbes.

One of the issues the team is working on is making sure that no smell or potential hazardous gases are created as a by-product in the closed environment of the space station or a spacecraft on its way to deep space.

“On Earth, a little bit of an odor is not a problem, but in space a bad smell is a deal breaker,” Hintze said.

Right now trash in the ISS is stuffed into the Progress resupply ship, which burns up in the atmosphere during re-entry. This new reactor could turn the trash into something valuable in space.

Source: NASA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

How To Train for a Mission to the ISS: Medical Mayhem

Astronaut Chris Hadfield with biomedical equipment attached to his forehead. Credit: Chris Hadfield.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is scheduled to launch on Decemer 19 with crewmates Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko on a Soyuz rocket, heading for a long-duration 5-month mission on board the International Space Station. We’re taking a look back at his 2-plus years of training for this mission, which Hadfield shared via Twitter and Facebook, letting the public get an inside look at what it takes to prepare for a long-duration spaceflight.

The movie “The Right Stuff” depicted the grueling array of medical tests the early astronauts had to undergo in order to determine if they had… well, the right stuff to go into space. Now, more than 50 years later, with scientists and the medical community knowing quite a bit more about how the human body reacts to micro-gravity, the pre-flight medical procedures aren’t quite as intrusive. But astronaut Chris Hadfield says it is still part of being an astronaut.

“They do a nice job of telling how hard it is going to be, how invasive,” he said in an interview with Universe Today, “but none of that matters when it’s time to go to bed at night, when you’ve got six different probes stuck in you or a loud machine next to you, and you know you you’re not going to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Whether you are flying a spaceship or a T-38, it is good to be prepared,” Hadfield said, along with posting this image via Twitter.

Another part of medical training is having a forced special diet where “you have to document everything you eat, evaluating what happens at the other end,” Hadfield explained, “and they try to be as good and non-invasive as they can, but by its very nature it is invasive, and that’s the way it is.”

Hadfield said he knew about this going into the job. “It is absolutely part of the business so it is OK,” he said.

Hadfield participating in the VC Reflex test, an experiment for orthostatic hypotension, or dizzyness from low blood pressure, one of the most common physical complications of spaceflight. “Space Science: applying electricity behind the ears affects balance and thus blood pressure regulation,” Hadfield said.

Not only are there pre-flight medical tests and procedures, but all space station crew members undergo continual medical tests and evaluations during their time in orbit, becoming test subjects for various experiments as well as keeping tabs on their health while in space.

“We do regular urine, saliva collection and blood draws. We have to be able to take blood from each other or yourself. If you’ve never taken blood from yourself…” Hadfield said, letting the sentence trail off. Fun? Not so much.

“Astronaut physical for Space Station today – 18 tubes and a squeeze ball”

Thankfully, the astronauts don’t always have to poke themselves. “We have volunteers come in all the time and let me stick them with a needle so I can get good at drawing blood,” Hadfield said, “and we do a lot of ultrasounds – carotid artery and cardiac ultrasounds. We need to identify any changes that take place in the heart after extended zero-g. This is all very important for going beyond Earth orbit; we need to understand those changes.”

A day of medical training with dummies. “Somehow the sock makes it worse,” Hadfield said via Twitter.

Not only do the crew have to do medical tests on themselves, but they have to be prepared for any medical emergency, since there usually isn’t a dedicated medical doctor on the space station. However, Hadfield considers himself lucky: crewmate Marshburn is a medical doctor.

“There are various ways to get ill on board – some natural, like appendicitis, stroke, — or you could be in an accident.” Hadfield said, “Someone could bang their head coming around a corner, get pinched between equipment, get the bends coming in from a spacewalk, or be exposed to poisonous gas. Various things can happen.”

“We have full-911 capability on board,” Hadfield continued. “We can react, we can strap someone down, get them on oxygen, inject them with things to get their heart going again, or use defibrillators. We need to know how to intubate people and give them forced breathing. We need to know how to react.”

Medical training includes practicing emergency medical procedures such as stitches.

They have small pharmacy on board, and need to know a lot of procedures. “Of course we always have medical help on-call from the ground, but you could easily have to deal with a burn or something in an eye, so I’ve trained working in an emergency room at a hospital in Houston,” Hadfield said, doing things from making a quick diagnosis to inserting catheters or IVs, or sewing stitches on wounds “ so I can get comfortable doing those things to the human body.”

Astronauts on the ISS practicing CPR: “How do you give CPR without gravity to hold you down? Like this!,” Tweeted Hadfield.

This video shows some of the emergency medical training the crew receives:

Next: Astronaut Food

Additional articles in this series:
How to Train for Long Duration Space Flight with Chris Hadfield
How to Train for a Mission to the ISS: Medical Mayhem
How to Train for a Mission to the ISS: Eating in Space
How to Train for a Mission to the ISS: The Soyuz

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Golden Spike to Offer Commercial Human Missions to the Moon

A proposed Golden Spike lunar lander on the Moon. Credit: Golden Spike Company

A proposed Golden Spike lunar lander on the Moon. Credit: Golden Spike Company

A group of space experts, media figures and even politicians announced today a new commercial company to bring paying passengers to the Moon. The Golden Spike Company is looking to “implement and operate a human space transportation system at commercially successful price points,” the company says on their website, focusing “on generating a sustainable human lunar exploration business that generates profits through multiple high value revenue streams.”

Initial estimates for a ticket to the Moon and back with Golden Spike are a cool $1.5 billion. But they aren’t only focusing on individuals as paying customers, but also other space companies and even governmental entities.

The people behind Golden Spike include their CEO Alan Stern, Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto who is also involved with several other space-related ventures such as Uwingu, former Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin, former shuttle flight director Wayne Hale and politician Newt Gingrich, who touted the idea of building colonies on the Moon while he was a US presidential candidate.

Golden Spike’s video preview:

During an announcement at the National Press Club today — made on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last human exploration of the Moon — Griffin said that a group of like-minded individuals got together and concluded that time is ripe for such exploration that could be afforded by corporations, nations and individuals. Golden Spike looks to provide turn-key services such as vehicles, mission planning, mission ops, and crew training to create a reliable and affordable lunar exploration system that will be U.S. based

Stern said they will not build new hardware but adapt crew capsules already in development and use existing infrastructure and launchers. However, they are looking to developing their own lunar spacesuits and lunar landers.

Their tentative plan is to use a series of launches where the first launch sends a lunar lander to orbit the Moon and a second launch brings the crew, which will then dock with the lander and head to the Moon.

Stern said their costs per flight are not much higher than some recent robotic lunar missions that have been flown and they will offset their costs with spaceship naming rights, media rights, and other enticements, plus they hope to have several investors as backers.

They also want to bring public along as an integral part of the mission.

“We realize this is science fiction. We intend to make it science fact,” Stern was quoted as saying.

Reportedly, Golden Spike has conferred with NASA on their plans.

While there are already a number of skeptics about this new endeavor, others see it as a step forward.

“Conquering the space frontier requires leadership at NASA and a partnership between commercial companies and governments,” stated Commercial Space Fight President Michael Lopez-Alegria. “I’m thrilled to see the Golden Spike announcement, which harnesses space leaders with years of experience to launch an exciting new private space venture. In the last few years we’ve learned that commercial space, by speaking to the dreams and aspirations of people around the world, can create new excitement for space travel, bringing us ever closer to our shared goal of sustainably extending human activity beyond Earth.”

Other board members include new-space entrepreneur Esther Dyson and Taber McCallum, co-founder and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corporation. The list of advisers for the company former NASA engineer and author Homer Hickam, Bill Richardson, who has served as U.N. ambassador, energy secretary and the governor of New Mexico, space historian and author Andrew Chaikin, former NASA flight surgeon Jonathan Clark, Nancy Conrad who is founder of The Conrad Foundation and is the widow of Apollo 12 moonwalker Pete Conrad.

Golden Spike also lists United Launch Alliance, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems and several other space-industry companies as being involved with this new endeavor.

Golden Spike was the name given to the ceremonial spike that joined the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States in 1869, which opened up the Western frontier to new opportunities.

“We’re not just about America going back to the moon; we’re about American industry and American entrepreneurial spirit leading the rest of the world to an exciting era of human lunar exploration,” said Stern in a press release. “It’s the 21st century, we’re here to help countries, companies, and individuals extend their reach in space, and we think we’ll see an enthusiastic customer manifest developing.”

See the Golden Spike website

Sources: Thanks to Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) for live-Tweeting the press conference and to Doug Messier from Parabolic Arc for live blogging the event.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

NASA, Roscosmos Choose First Crew for Year-Long ISS Mission

Back in October the partnering countries of the International Space Station announced an agreement to send two crew members to the International Space Station on a one-year mission designed to collect valuable scientific data needed to send humans to new destinations in the solar system. Today, NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced they have selected the first crew to be part of such a mission: NASA has selected Scott Kelly and Roscosmos has chosen Mikhail Kornienko.

Kelly and Kornienko begin their mission in the spring of 2015, launching on Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in spring 2015 and will land in Kazakhstan in spring 2016. Kelly and Kornienko have trained together before, as Kelly was a backup crew member for the station’s Expedition 23/24 crews, where Kornienko served as a flight engineer.

“Congratulations to Scott and Mikhail on their selection for this important mission,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Their skills and previous experience aboard the space station align with the mission’s requirements. The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly

Kelly is the twin brother of former astronaut Mark Kelly, who is married to Gabrielle Giffords, the former US Congresswoman who was shot by an assailant in January of 2011.

The goal of their yearlong expedition is to understand better how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space. Data from the 12-month expedition will help inform current assessments of crew performance and health and will determine better and validate countermeasures to reduce the risks associated with future exploration as NASA plans for missions around the moon, an asteroid and ultimately Mars.

“Selection of the candidate for the one year mission was thorough and difficult due to the number of suitable candidates from the Cosmonaut corps,” said head of Russian Federal Space Agency, Vladimir Popovkin. “We have chosen the most responsible, skilled and enthusiastic crew members to expand space exploration, and we have full confidence in them.”

Kelly, a captain in the U.S. Navy, is from Orange, N.J. He has degrees from the State University of New York Maritime College and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He served as a pilot on space shuttle mission STS-103 in 1999, commander on STS-118 in 2007, flight engineer on the International Space Station Expedition 25 in 2010 and commander of Expedition 26 in 2011. Kelly has logged more than 180 days in space.

Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko

Kornienko is from the Syzran, Kuibyshev region of Russia. He is a former paratrooper officer and graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute as a specialist in airborne systems. He has worked in the space industry since 1986 when he worked at Rocket and Space Corporation-Energia as a spacewalk handbook specialist. He was selected as an Energia test cosmonaut candidate in 1998 and trained as an International Space Station Expedition 8 backup crew member. Kornienko served as a flight engineer on the station’s Expedition 23/24 crews in 2010 and has logged more than 176 days in space.

During the 12 years of permanent human presence aboard the International Space Station, scientists and researchers have gained valuable, and often surprising, data on the effects of microgravity on bone density, muscle mass, strength, vision and other aspects of human physiology. This yearlong stay will allow for greater analysis of these effects and trends.

Kelly and Kornienko will begin a two-year training program in the United States, Russia and other partner nations starting early next year.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Take a Guided Tour of the International Space Station

Before she left the International Space Station this weekend, former ISS commander Suni Williams recorded an extensive guided tour of the orbital laboratory. The tour includes scenes of each of the station’s modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.

Suni Williams, Expedition 33 commander, works in the Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Surreal Images of Soyuz Landing in the Dark

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft is seen shortly after it landed on November 19, 2012 with the Expedition 33 crew. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft carrying Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan, and even though it was 7:56 a.m. Kazakhstan time (01:56 UTC Nov. 19, 8:56 p.m. EST on Nov. 18), it was still dark near the remote northern latitude town of Arkalyk (50°14’53.16″N). This was the first pre-dawn landing in darkness for a station crew since April 9, 2006, when Expedition 12 crew members returned. The overhead pictures from the scene have a surreal feel to them.

A problem with the Soyuz’ parachute – it deployed about 5 seconds later than planned – caused the crew to land several miles away from the planned landing site, but a Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly afterward to assist the crew in getting out of the spacecraft, which landed on its side. Frigid temperatures greeted the crew when the hatch was opened; it was about -12 C (12 F), said NASA TV commentator Rob Navias.

Another overhead view of the Soyuz. Note the soot on the snow from the landing. Credit: Ria Novosti//Maxim Shipenkov. See a slideshow of images here.

The return of Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko wraps up 127 days in space for the three since their launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 15, including 125 days spent aboard the International Space Station.

Screenshot from NASA TV of the post-landing activities.

Earlier the crew bid farewell to their fellow crewmates, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy, and closed the hatches between the spacecraft at 2:15 p.m. When the Soyuz undocked from the station’s Rassvet module at 5:26 p.m. it marked the end of Expedition 33 and the beginning of Expedition 34 under the command of Ford.

The Expedition 33 crew sit in chairs outside the Soyuz Capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area outside the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Three additional Expedition 34 flight engineers — NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — are scheduled to launch from Baikonur Dec. 19 and dock to the station two days later for a five-month stay. Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart in March, marking the start of Expedition 35.

Here’s the video of the landing, although there is no actual footage of the Soyuz touching down, since it was dark and the spacecraft landed well away from the planned landing spot.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Change of Command on the Space Station

Before the crew of Expedition 32/33 comes home today, astronaut and commander Suni Williams handed over the reins of the International Space Station to Kevin Ford during the traditional change of command ceremony … which was not so traditional. Williams handed out gifts to the new crew, and at times seemed quite emotional. Last week Williams wrote in her blog that she really didn’t want to think about leaving the ISS. “Up to this point I haven’t, and sort of denied it,” she wrote. “And, I am still in denial, but I am going thru the motions because I don’t want to forget something when the hatch closes.”

Williams, Aki Hoshide of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko will return home after what seems like a short 125 days in space, arriving at the ISS on July 17.

They will leave the station today (Sunday, Nov 18), undocking at 22:26 UTC (5:26 p.m. EST) Sunday and land in Kazakhstan at 01:53 UTC on Monday (8:53 p.m EST Sunday). You can watch live coverage on NASA TV.

Remaining onboard the ISS to begin Expedition 34 are Ford, Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin. They will be joined by Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and NASA’s Tom Marshburn on Dec. 21 to bring the ISS crew compliment back to six. As Ford notes in the video, the new crew are “newbies” with a combined in-space experience of about 3 months, while Williams and her crew have a combined time in space of about 3 years.

JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide during an EVA on Nov. 1, 2012, where he and Suni Williams worked to troubleshoot problems with an ammonia leak outside the ISS. Credit: NASA

The time Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko were on board saw the October arrival the first official commercial spacecraft, SpaceX’s Dragon. Williams and Hoshide also carried out two spacewalks, with Williams now holding the record for total spacewalk time by a female at 50 hours and 40 minutes over seven career spacewalks. Malenchenko is a space veteran with several Soyuz flights, a flight on the Space Shuttle and three stints on the ISS.

Here’s the scene as Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko say goodbye and close the hatches between the ISS and Soyuz:

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Enticing Trailer for New Movie about a Mission to Europa

Here’s a trailer from a new movie called “Europa Report” about a near-future mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in search of extraterrestrial life. From the trailer, the film looks to be of extremely high quality, and it stars Sharlto Copley (District 9), with music score from composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica).

And while this is a sci-fi flick, the makers of “Europa Report” say they are trying to steep it in real science.

The PR for the film is just getting underway, but they have a realistic-looking website that appears to show webcam views from a spacecraft heading to Europa.

Screenshot:

Here’s the blurb from the website:

For decades, scientists have theorized the existence of liquid water oceans on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. We’ve recently discovered new, captivating evidence that these sub-surface oceans do exist and could support life.

We’ve sent six astronauts from space programs throughout the world on a three year journey to Europa to explore its oceans and confirm these findings.

We’re proud to be at the forefront of the effort to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life within our solar system, within our lifetimes.

And yep, like any film about spaceflight, something has to go wrong during the mission.

The release date for the film has not yet been set.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Google Honors Canadarm’s 31st Anniversary

Canada’s most famous robot is on the front page of Google.ca today. The Google doodle honors the 31st anniversary of the first use of Canadarm in space.

Canadarm is a robotic arm that flew on virtually every shuttle mission. The technology is still being used today in space.

According to the 1992 book A Heritage of Excellence, Canada was first invited to work in the shuttle program in 1969. Toronto engineering firm DSMA-Atcon Ltd. initially pitched a Canadian-built space telescope, but NASA was more interested in DSMA’s other work.

“The Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland expressed interest in another of DSMA’s gadgets – a robot the company had developed for loading fuel into Candu nuclear reactors,” wrote Lydia Dotto in the book, which Spar commissioned to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

“It was just the thing for putting a satellite they were building into space.”

Dozens of astronauts have used the Canadarms during spacewalks, including Michael L. Gernhardt on STS-104. Credit: NASA

The Canadian government and NASA signed a memorandum of understanding in 1975 to build the arm. Legislation allowing the project to move forward passed the next year. Canadian company Spar became the prime contractor, with DSMA, CAE and RCA as subcontractors.

Engineers had to face several challenges when constructing the Canadarm, including how to grapple satellites. The solution was an “end effector“, a snare on the end of the Canadarm to grasp satellites designed to be hoisted into space.

Several NASA astronauts, including Sally Ride, gave feedback on the arm’s development. Canadarm flew for the first time on STS-2, which launched Nov. 12, 1981. (Ride herself used the arm on STS-7 when she became the first American woman to fly in space.)

Marc Garneau, the first Canadian astronaut in space, has said the arm’s success led to the establishment of the Canadian astronaut program. He flew in 1984, three years after Canadarm’s first flight.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield during an EVA in 2001. Also in the image is the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the ISS. Credit: NASA

Some of the arm’s notable achievements:

– Launching space probes, including the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, as well as short-term experiments that ran during shuttle missions;

– Retrieving satellites for servicing. One prominent example was the rescue of the INTELSAT VI satellite on STS-49, which required the first three-astronaut spacewalk;

– Launching the Hubble Space Telescope, then retrieving and relaunching it during each repair mission;

– Helping to build the International Space Station along with Canadarm2, its younger sibling;

– Scanning for broken tiles on the bottom of the shuttle. Astronauts used a procedure developed after Columbia, carrying seven astronauts, was destroyed during re-entry in 2003. A Canadarm was modified into an extension boom; another Canadarm grasped that boom to reach underneath the shuttle.

The arm was so successful that MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (which acquired Spar) built a robotic arm for the International Space Station, called Canadarm2. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield helped install the arm during his first spacewalk in 2001.

Canadarm2’s most nail-biting moment was in 2007, when astronauts used it to hoist astronaut Steve Parazynski (who was balancing on the extension boom) for a tricky solar panel repair on the station.

November 3, 2007 – Canadarm2 played a big role in helping astronauts fix a torn solar array. Here, Scott Parazynski analyses the solar panel while anchored to the boom. Credit: NASA

More recently, Canadarm2 was used to grapple the Dragon spacecraft when SpaceX’s demonstration and resupply missions arrived at the International Space Station this year.

MDA recently unveiled several next-generation Canadarm prototypes that could, in part, be used to refuel satellites. The Canadian Space Agency funded the projects with $53 million (CDN $53.1 million) in stimulus money. MDA hopes to attract more money to get the arms ready for space.

You can read more about the Canadarm’s history on the Canadian Space Agency website.

Posted on by Jenny Winder

Spaceflight: Taking it Lying Down

Caption: Bedrest volunteer in bed during a study conducted in 2005. Credit: ESA

As you get older, do feel you could do with more rest? Our bodies lose bone density and muscle strength as we age. Astronauts in space suffer similar changes but at a much faster rate. Finding ways to understand and combat this process is important to space agencies, hospital patients and all of us as we grow older. A new study is about to commence at the French Institute for Space Medicine and Physiology, in the clinical research facility in Toulouse, France, that hopes to understand and address changes in astronauts’ bodies in space as well as in bedridden people on Earth. 12 volunteers will spend 21 days in bed. Sound relaxing? Think again.

The volunteers taking part in the study, will lie for 24 hours a day with their heads tilted 6° below the horizontal. They will not be allowed to get up, for any reason. Not for a breath of fresh air, a change of scenery, a shower or to use the toilet, until the 21 days are over. This will cause their bodies to react in similar ways to being weightless, without the expense or  risks involved in sending them into space.

In microgravity, bone loss occurs at a rate of 1 to 1.5% a month. This bone demineralization increases the risks of kidney stones and bone fractures as well as altering the ability of bones to heal after fractures. Loss of muscle mass, strength and endurance, increases risk of fatigue and injury. The heart may experience diminished cardiac function and possible disturbances in heart rhythm.

Microgravity also causes body fluids to be redistributed away from the extremities, which results in puffiness in the face during flight. The body’s neurovestibular system that controls balance, stabilizes vision and body orientation in terms of location and direction may also become impaired, leading to disorientation and lack of coordination. The body can also suffer loss of blood volume, low red blood cell levels and immunodeficiency

Although many of the effects are reversible upon return to Earth, astronauts may have problems standing up, stabilizing their gaze, walking and turning, immediately after landing. Some astronauts find their blood pressure drops abnormally low when they move from lying down to a sitting or standing position.

The participants in this latest study will be scientifically scrutinised to see how they adapt to staying in bed for long periods, but they will also be divided into three groups to test a set of measures designed to counteract muscle and bone loss. The control group will be given no countermeasures, while a second group will use resistive and vibrating exercise machines. The last group will use the exercise machines and eat nutritional supplements of whey protein – a common supplement used by bodybuilders to train their muscles.

Each group of volunteers will participate in all the regimes, one after the other, over the course of the entire experiment of more than a year. They will be given four months between each bedrest session to recuperate. After the first 21-day session, they will return to the at the MEDES Space Clinic in Toulouse, for another session and once more in 2013 for a final session. After all that I bet they will need a rest.

Read more about this study here
And read diaries from participants in a similar study that ran for 60 days in 2005 here