Flying Blind in Space Long-Term?

In a September 2nd article on the website MedLine Plus, a site run by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, being in space for extended periods of time can affect your eyesight.

"The new study, of more than 300 astronauts in the U.S. space program, found that almost 50 percent of those who served on long missions -- six months or more -- reported experiencing new problems with their ability to see objects near to them while in space and for some time after returning to Earth. Roughly 23 percent of astronauts who spent shorter periods in orbit reported problems with their near vision during their missions and after getting home."

Yikes!  I hope we can find a solution for this.  Otherwise, we will not be able to see what we discover when we go venturing away from the planet.

Studying this and other space health issues should be something we are doing on the International Space Station.  After all, we don't even know what the health effects are for someone staying in space for as short as two years.  Hey, NASA, let's put some money into this please.

To view the entire Medline Plus article, click here.

Who Knew? A Lot of People According to Neil

[Hi, I am Leigh Ervine.  I am a friend of Eleanor's, a self-professed computer geek, and a long time follower/supporter of Exploring Space.  Every now and then I will post something here at SMA.  If you like it, let me know.  If you don't, let me know.  And now for the post.]

I was reading through tweets on my twitter account this morning and came across something from NPR you don't see every day.  Neil Armstrong responding to a blog posting about Apollo 11.

Robert Krulwich posted about how far Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin traveled away from the Lunar Module during their less than three hour excursion.  Robert was posting about a site (you can find a link in his post) that allows you to map things like lunar landing sites over things like a soccer field or your neighborhood.  (Cool stuff for a geek like me.)  I wasn't surprised that the distance traveled was so small.  What was surprising was the usually quiet Neil Armstrong responded.

You can read the original post with the geeky tool here.

Or you can just skip to the post with the Neil Armstrong response here.

Apollo 11 Musings

For those who don’t know, one of the myriad of things I do to keep busy is volunteering as a docent at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC (if you ever want to come for a tour-- contact me!) I have been a docent since 1995, and I still enjoy making visitors’ experience in our nation’s capital just a bit more special (or at least that’s my hope!)

While I never grow tired of showing the same artifacts over and over and retelling the stories surrounding them to countless tourists, one can being to feel like you are toiling a bit in vain when you see that space exploration is, for the foreseeable future, a veritable non-starter. Nevertheless, while introducing the Spirit of St. Louis and Charles Lindbergh to a tour group this past weekend, I had a participant ask me “So, how did Lindbergh combat vertigo during his flight?” As it turned out, the person posing the question was a student at Embry-Riddle in Orlando, was planinng on obtaining his PhD in aeronautical (or nuclear) engineering, and was also hoping to earn his wings in the Navy, and then to eventually work for NASA or a viable commercial venture. The student was a delight and his enthusiasm was infectious. Indeed, on the eve of the 41st anniversary of Apollo 11, my random encounter with this guy was just the jolt of reinvestment I needed to regain some of my enthusiasm for spaceflight. Gods Speed, Apollo 11 (and the future of manned spaceflight!)