Happy who, like Kelly, made a beautiful trip / Or as Kornienko who conquered Station / And then retracted, capsule home / Living on Earth the rest of his age!
At a time when we write these lines, both, US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are to pack their bags. They spent almost an entire year in space, an unusually long stay, it is time for them to find dry land. Kelly officially passed command of the International Space Station (ISS) to his colleague Timothy Kopra during a small ceremony broadcast live on the website of NASA.
The ISS occupancy schedule is complex, recently. The earliest occupants are our two heroes of the day, Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, present since March 25, 2015 for an unprecedented scientific study on the reactions of the human body to a long stay in weightlessness. They were joined in September by the Russian Sergei Volkov, who will go with them tonight on Earth. Meanwhile also arrived American Timothy Kopra, new commander, Russian Yuri Malenchenko and Briton Tim Peake, team of “shipment number 47″ which begins when the Soyuz capsule taking them three starters will detach from ISS. After living several months to six, there will be only three men into space.
At 10:15 p.m. French time, it will be time to say goodbye and installation on board ‘Soyuz uncomfortable. At 1:45 tomorrow morning, a new live video will show the start of the capsule, scheduled for 2:05. And finally, the orderly disposal process will begin at 4:34 am, with a scheduled landing in Kazakhstan for 5:27. Phew!
Unable to stand
The return will be difficult. That’s three hundred and forty days that Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko have not felt the earth’s gravity, and they will feel crushed under their own weight out of the capsule, unable to stand on their feet and carried like babies up a chair for the first health checks. Yet they do sports every day to limit muscle loss that strikes humans in space.
Kelly and Kornienko were closely monitored by medical teams to study the evolution of their organization. The results, which will not be released until two years are critical reflection and preparations for a possible human journey to Mars in the coming decades. Between Earth and Mars, each way takes about nine months.
In the heart, bones, muscles and vessels, the effects of space travel becoming known. The walls of arteries, for example, thickens more quickly than it would on Earth. After six months in microgravity, the arteries of an astronaut aged the equivalent of twenty to thirty years of earthly life.
“Vision Disorders”
But the advanced technologies today allow for more delicate measures on the movement of fluids in the human body and the brain, said on France Inter Philippe Arbeille, Space physiology specialist Tours medical school, part of the scientists thirties engaged in surveillance of our two astronauts: “our main concern was whether the movement of fluids to the upper body, which occurs when in microgravity could generate an increase in pressure in the skull. “
This would have particularly adverse effects in the eye. “There are a few years, NASA has found that astronauts made mistakes related to vision problems during flights, says Philippe Arbeille. In return, it was concluded that these people had an abnormality in the eye, caused by stasis of liquids “, that is to say, their accumulation and stagnation. Under pressure from these liquids, behind the eyes and flattens the shape of the eye changes, resulting in a loss of visual acuity. “More than half of American astronauts have experienced changes in their vision and anatomical alterations of the eye “ says Nasa.
Kelly and Kornienko were therefore commissioned to take stock in depth on the issue within the framework of the study” Fluid shifts “, they are the first guinea pigs. Ten astronauts from the crew of expeditions 47, 48, 49 and 50 will also participate. In the final, which will take off in November 2016 and will return to Earth in May 2017, will be located French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. But Scott Kelly will probably be the most interesting subject of study because while he floated at 27 600 km / hour in orbit, his twin brother Mark E. Kelly, an astronaut too, remained on Earth for comparison.
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