For Williams and Wilmore, the test pilot of Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, the eight-day mission has stretched to more than nine months as a series of helium leaks and thruster failures deemed their spacecraft unsafe and had to be empty in September.
Astronauts who once traveled on space missions reported difficulty walking, poor vision, dizziness and a condition called baby’s feet, where space travelers lost thick skin on the soles, just as the soles of babies became soft.
“Astronauts return to Earth, they will be immediately forced to readjust again, back to Earth’s gravity, can encounter problems, gaze stably, walk and turn. For safety reasons, Baylor Medical College said in a ticket in space that when returning to Earth, the return astronauts are often placed immediately on their chairs.”
It takes weeks for astronauts to recalibrate life on Earth.
The vestibular organs deep inside the ears can maintain body balance while walking on Earth by sending information about gravity to the brain.
“In the low gravity of space, the information received from the vestibular organ changes. This is thought to confuse the brain and lead to space disease. When you return to Earth, you experience the effects of the gravity of the Earth again, so sometimes there are “gravity disease” and sometimes there are symptoms similar to that of space disease,” said Jaxa, a Japanese space company.
On Earth, gravity pulls blood and other body fluids to the lower part of the body, but for astronauts lose weight in space, these fluids accumulate on the upper part of the body, making them look swollen.
“Astronauts returning to Earth often feel dizzy when standing, which is called orthostatic hypotension. This is because the gravity on Earth is stronger than in space and it is more difficult to transfer blood from the heart to the head.”
Lack of gravity can lead to significant bone density loss and is often irreparable. According to NASA, for every month of space, astronauts’ load-bearing bones will not take precautions to deal with this loss, which is about one percent less.
To help solve this problem, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have strict motion programs.
“Astronauts use treadmills or fixed bicycles for two hours a day to avoid bone and muscle deterioration that occurs in zero gravity. Without this exercise, astronauts will not be able to walk or stand when they return to Earth in space for months,” NASA said.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield reportedly experienced weightless tongue when he returned from the International Space Station in 2013.
“After landing, I could feel the weight of my lips and tongue, and I had to change the way I spoke. I didn’t realize I learned to speak with a heavy tongue.”
Astronauts may also be more susceptible to infections and diseases because of the suppression of the immune system.
“Although we have seen that immune cells are not showing up in space, we have not had any serious infections on the space station so far, so the altered behavior of cells cannot be directly transferred to the immune protection aspect,” said Sergi Vaquer, a flight surgeon at the European Space Agency, in a blog post on the agency’s website.
