Medical Dangers in Space Travel By: Bryce Lewin

Muscles start to Weaken You don’t need strong muscles because there is no gravity and you are weightless. Your muscles start to shrink and shed the tissue you don’t need anymore. This leads to bad posture.

Heart Problems You can lose up to 22% of your blood. Because of the blood loss in your body your heart does not work as hard and weakens. This leads to dangerously low blood pressure. Your heart starts to lose shape and starts to form into a sphere.

Hearing loss It is very loud in space so it causes astronauts to lose their hearing. Data from Russian missions recorded loss of high pitched sounds. Most times the hearing loss is temporary but sometimes it is permanent.

Kidney Stones Kidney stones are like little rocks made of calcium in your kidney. They are very painful. The lack of gravity in space increases the risk of a kidney stone. In a weightless environment salt gets released into your blood which can make it into the kidney causing kidney stones.

Vision Loss 60% of the people who spent several months in space had vision loss. Liquid like blood and water go into your head which flattens your eyes. A flattened eye makes you farsighted which means you can’t see up close very well.

Moon Dust Harm The moon soil is filled with small dried particles called moon dust. It gets in astronaut’s spacesuits very often. Breathing in sharp moon dust can harm your heart and lungs. It can cause a little problem like swelling all the way up to a risk of cancer. Dust can also scratch your eye and can cause huge eye problems.

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