Explainer ExplainerSpace 'Puffy head bird leg syndrome': What space travel does to the body

Being in space takes a toll on human bodies. Abrupt changes of gravity, weightlessness, radiation and close quarters can threaten the wellbeing of astronauts and their mission.

By Jackson Graham
September 15, 2024

Andy Thomas had just landed on Earth after 20 weeks in space. He unfastened his restraints, got to his feet and felt a staggering weight in his legs. “I thought, my god, I’ll never walk again.” He turned his head, and the cabin seemed to spin. “I felt nauseated. I just felt listless. My balance was all off,” he recalls. “It just felt awful.”

It was 1998 and Thomas, one of only two Australians who have travelled in space, had just hours earlier been aboard Russia’s Mir Space Station, floating about with other international crew members. After touchdown at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, he was whisked into crew rooms and given anti-nausea tablets as he waited out the worst of his body’s reaction to entering back into Earth’s gravity. “I kept still, didn’t move my head, just waited.”

Since the early days of the space race, back in the 1950s and ’60s, astronauts have undergone all sorts of regimens to prepare for the adverse effects of space travel and have been scrutinised for years after their return. Just over 700 people have travelled into space, according to the US Air Force definition, most orbiting the Earth in space stations, including the International Space Station (ISS), China’s Tiangong Space Station, and earlier vessels such as NASA’s Skylab.

Sometimes, journeys are longer than expected. In June, US astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were meant to spend just eight days in Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, testing its capacity to dock at the ISS. The mission blew out to some eight months because of concerns about Starliner’s ability to return safely. Until NASA returns them on a vessel from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company in February, they are “safe aboard the space station”, NASA says. “They understood the possibilities and unknowns.

More:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/puffy-head-bird-leg-syndrome-what-space-travel-does-to-the-body-20240909-p5k90c.html