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Yet another problem with long term Space travel has been highlighted this week, following the release of results for a study by NASA researcher Lakshmi Putcha and her colleagues.

Need a medication here on Earth? No problem – simply visit your local chemists or look in your medicine cabinet at home where simple medications such as pain-killers or antibiotics, if stored correctly, have a shelf life of up to a couple of years and retain most of their potency in that time. However, astronauts in Space it would seem might not be quite so lucky.

Longer duration Space travel, such as to Mars, may require astronauts to spend up to 2 years on board a space craft, and so the need to take greater volumes of medication will be required. Little is currently know in relation to the potential effects that the Space environment can have on these – an environment subject to such factors as microgravity, radiation, flight vibration, as well as variations in temperature and humidity.

Consequently, a study was conducted involving flying four boxes of drugs, each containing 35 medications up to the International Space Station (ISS). In accordance with good scientific practice, four identical boxes were also kept under controlled conditions at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, USA, to act as a control for comparison. The four boxes from the ISS were returned one by one, back to Earth after varying lengths of time, with one box returning after just 13 days and the last box returning after 28 months on the ISS.

The medications were analysed to see how they compared to the control kits and it was found that; less than third of the medications kept in Space met US requirements for levels of active ingredients; the longer the kits were in Space, the fewer the number of formulations that retained acceptable potency levels.

The authors conclude that "It is important to characterize space-specific degradation products and toxicity limits using ground-based analogue environments of space that include proton and heavy ion radiation, vibration and multiple gravity conditions.  This information can facilitate research for the development of space-hardy pharmaceuticals and packaging technologies."

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NASA Astronaut Cady Coleman, currently onboard the International Space Station, teamed up this week with Ian Anderson from vintage British rock group Jethro Tull to perform the first ever Space-Earth duet on the flute, in tribute to the 50th anniversary of the first manned Space flight by Yuri Gagarin.

The realities of trying to synch up the two performances in real time, however, were impossible with astronaut Coleman being on the ISS some 250 miles up in orbit, and Anderson currently touring in Russia. Consequently Coleman recorded her part in the duet “Bouree” a few days prior to Anderson performing his part at a concert in Perm, Russia. The two performances were then spliced together for the tribute video.

Hit the play button and have a listen – it sounds good!

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 April 12th 2011 will see celebrated the 50th anniversary of the historic Space flight of Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin. 

Born March 9th 1934 and although coming from a humble background, he gained the rank of senior lieutenant in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic’s Air Force. 

However, it was in 1960 that Gagarin's life would change forever when he was one of 20 pilots selected for the Soviet Space program. The selection process consisted of physical and psychological testing, as well as a detailed assessment of performance obtained in training, so life was not easy for the young cosmonaut candidate.

 The long awaited answer to who would be chosen finally came and Gagarin found himself selected to participate in the first manned space mission in history. Besides his good performances in the selection process, other factors counted in his favour such as coming from a simple background with both parents being farmers, an important factor within the Soviet communist system. He had a flamboyant and charismatic personality, and more importantly Gagarin was short, measuring only 1.60m or 5 foot 3 inches tall – a crucial consideration when the spacecraft designed for the mission, Vostok-1, was compact and left little room to accommodate a pilot.

 Vostok-1 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 12th 1961, arrived in orbit and completed one lap around planet Earth before reentry, taking a total time of 1 hr 48 minutes. The flight of the space craft was fully automatic and the control panel locked. Gagarin did though have a code key with which to take control of the ship in case of necessity, though this did not turn out to be needed. However, not quite all went as planned with one service module failing to separate from the main sphere as intended, remaining attached by some wires. This caused some wild gyrations of the craft to take place upon reentry to Earth’s atmosphere, before the wires eventually burned through freeing the remaining sphere and allowing a smoother descent.

With just 7km to go before landing, Gagarin ejected from the sphere and landed safely by parachute. This fact was denied by the Soviet Union for many years, for fear of the flight not being recognised by the FAI, the world governing body for air sports. The rules of the day stated that astronaut and craft must come down together and thus the true facts were kept quiet until 1971.

 Fifty years ago today Yuri Gagarin took less than 2 hours to write his name in the history books, forever to be remembered as the first person in Space, and heralded the beginning of a new relationship between mankind and his blue planet. 

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It is not unusual these days to receive emails sent from friends or family, containing cute or curious pictures they think might make you smile, and yesterday was no exception.

Normally I take a quick look before hitting the delete button, but I have to say that one set of pictures from yesterday’s Inbox I thought were particularly clever and I take my hat off to the talented photographer and scientific journalist, Laurent Laveder.

Laveder specialises in pictures of starry skyscapes and has created a series of images called Moon Games which incorporate the Moon with people cleverly posed in the foreground to create great illusions.

Take a quick peek at a few of his creations below – they are very clever! 

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The dangers presented to astronauts by long term missions into Space have long been known, are numerous, and for the most part remain in the realms of theory and supposition due to a lack of real life situations and physical data.

What can be done by scientists is to create an artificial environment that simulates one or more of the conditions that may be faced by astronauts, and conduct appropriate experiments to evaluate the possible effects on the human physiology.

For example, scientists at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, USA have done exactly this in relation to the possible effects of cosmic radiation on the human heart, details published April 6 2011, in the journal Radiation Research.

Researchers analysed the effect of exposure to iron ion radiation on mice, a radiation commonly occurring in Space, to see if exposure promotes the development of arterial disease (atherosclerosis).

According to Prof. Dennis Kucik, associate professor in the department of pathology, UAB, “It's well known that prolonged exposure to radiation sources here on Earth, including those used in cancer treatment, excessive occupational exposure and atomic bombs, are associated with an increased risk for atherosclerosis. But cosmic radiation is very different from X-rays and other radiation found on Earth. The radiation risks of deep-space travel are difficult to predict, largely because so few people have been exposed."

Results from the research found that permanent damage to the aorta and carotid arteries in mice did take place, which suggests that deep Space missions, such as those to Mars, might present health risks for astronauts from radiation that could give rise to heart problems.   

For more details click HERE
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Russian Soyuz TMA-21 named after Yuri Gagarin
The docking of a soyuz spaceship with the International Space Station is not in itself anything out of the ordinary these days.

However, the soyuz that successfully docked in the early hours of this morning (7 April 02:13UT) is officially named in tribute to Yuri Gagarin and the fiftieth anniversary of the flight of the first man in Space.

And rather fittingly, the soyuz blasted off from the same launch pad, Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that was used 50 years ago for the historic event on 12th April 1961. 
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Earth's gravitational pull measured by the GOCE satellite
New images were revealed yesterday in Munich Germany, of planet Earth looking a bit like a multi-coloured revolving potato!

The images, better known as geoid maps, are compiled from data collected by the European Space Agency sponsored Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer – GOCE for short, which was launched in 2009. This satellite flies at an unusually low altitude of just 254km, in a pole to pole orbit, and can measure even the tiniest changes in gravity.

The images show a map of the changes in gravitational pull over the Earth’s surface from the top of mountain ranges down to the depths of the ocean floor.  The bright yellow areas show where gravity is at its strongest and range down to the blue areas where it is at its weakest.

Scientists involved in the project say that although the movements of tectonic plates can not be observed from Space, the patterns of gravity data may assist in understanding the processes involved in natural disasters such as this year’s Japan earthquake, and ultimately enable a better prediction of such events. 

Click the play button below to see the all round view.

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