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The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#41

Post by whuuu3 »

mtreis86 wrote: post #37
wizardhat wrote: post #26

Studies going as far back as the 80s show that people in submarines develop myopia: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7457562 The leading theory is that being in a confined space causes the eye to adapt to viewing things up close rather than at a distance.

Anecdote: I saw an article about Native Americans, using a technique of quickly focusing from near to far and back as a means to increase their eyesight range, when I was around twelve years old. Called Eagle Eyes, or something. I have been practicing regularly for eighteen years now, and my eyesight has only improved. I have been looking at computers and books at least a third of my time since. Am I actively prevent…

That's really interesting. What were your prescriptions before/after?

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#42

Post by stuff4ben »

gizmo686 wrote: post #5
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is ready to admit it yet, but IMO there is no long term future for us in space without something like artificial gravity. I remember back in the 1970s one of the Skylab astronauts came to my college to give a talk. I had read about some problems, so I asked him about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all. As they say,…

I am not aware of research on how much gravity is needed to maintain a healthy environment. For example, it is possible that an body as light as Pluto (with only .06 Gs) would offset the majority of the effects of low gravity. If this is the case, then permantant bases on Moons/Planets would face little issues from micro-gravity concerns. If humans require closer to 1G to remain healthy, then these bases become more…

That's a great point. Makes me wonder why we're not getting that moon base setup. Seems like a natural first step prior to colonizing Mars. Learn how to survive on the Moon, take that knowledge and apply to Mars.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#43

Post by kybernetikos »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18
ams6110 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now all your space vehicles need to be able to hold together under 1G of force. That means a lot more structure and mass and the cost goes way up.

How about sleeping in a centrifuge? No need for the entire spaceship to spin.

Chris Hadfield says that sleeping in 0g is one of the best bits of being in space.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#44

Post by adrianN »

akiselev wrote: post #30
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should get much cheaper once spacex gets things right.

Even if SpaceX made the launch costs a hundred times cheaper than the shuttle, it would still cost over $500 million and that would only launch a tiny fraction of the mass needed for a full artifical gravity space station. The estimated cost of the International Space Station so far is over $100 billion not including launch costs so even if another company cut costs there by a factor of ten, thats $10 billion, again…

10 billion is about the same order of magnitude as an aircraft carrier. The US has ten.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#45

Post by datenwolf »

Damn, as a guy in OCT research, working with the ATM most advanced OCT imaging systems there are (which we develop ourself) it's been itching me to get one of our systems up there for research. There's currently a Heidelberg OCT on board the ISS, but this thing can do only 2D scans in high resolution. And with our stuff we can do 3D scans in high resolution and even markerless angiography.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#46

Post by Snowdax »

sarreph wrote: post #36
andrewtbham wrote: post #2

It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity

It may not prevent travel to Mars (for example, on a centrifugal space station), but considering gravity on Mars is 62% lower than here on Earth, I would postulate without some kind of gravity manipulation we are yet to develop (unless we have the energy to build centrifugal colonies on land) then manned missions on Mars would suffer a similar fate.

Until relativity and the standard model can be merged and we can figure out a cause and effect between gravity and other fundamental forces and figure out who to trigger gravity with an electrical switch for example gravity manipulation is not going to happen for quite some time. We'll probably just take the risk and go to Mars and suffer the health consequences.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#47

Post by wtetzner »

Snowdax wrote: post #46
sarreph wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not prevent travel to Mars (for example, on a centrifugal space station), but considering gravity on Mars is 62% lower than here on Earth, I would postulate without some kind of gravity manipulation we are yet to develop (unless we have the energy to build centrifugal colonies on land) then manned missions on Mars would suffer a similar fate.

Until relativity and the standard model can be merged and we can figure out a cause and effect between gravity and other fundamental forces and figure out who to trigger gravity with an electrical switch for example gravity manipulation is not going to happen for quite some time. We'll probably just take the risk and go to Mars and suffer the health consequences.

> We'll probably just take the risk and go to Mars and suffer the health consequences.

Or find a way to treat the problems directly, rather than avoid them using artificial gravity.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#49

Post by pivo »

mtreis86 wrote: post #37
wizardhat wrote: post #26

Studies going as far back as the 80s show that people in submarines develop myopia: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7457562 The leading theory is that being in a confined space causes the eye to adapt to viewing things up close rather than at a distance.

Anecdote: I saw an article about Native Americans, using a technique of quickly focusing from near to far and back as a means to increase their eyesight range, when I was around twelve years old. Called Eagle Eyes, or something. I have been practicing regularly for eighteen years now, and my eyesight has only improved. I have been looking at computers and books at least a third of my time since. Am I actively prevent…

Years ago my optometrist suggested I do this exercise. I've been doing it at regular intervals throughout the day for the last 10 years or so. Can't say my eyesight has improved but maybe it's prevented it from getting worse.

Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight

#50

Post by mtreis86 »

whuuu3 wrote: post #41
mtreis86 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: I saw an article about Native Americans, using a technique of quickly focusing from near to far and back as a means to increase their eyesight range, when I was around twelve years old. Called Eagle Eyes, or something. I have been practicing regularly for eighteen years now, and my eyesight has only improved. I have been looking at computers and books at least a third of my time since. Am I actively prevent…

That's really interesting. What were your prescriptions before/after?

I was 20/20 in both eyes before, 20/15 in one and 20/10 in the other now. The last measurement was two years ago.
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