Spaceflight can be hazardous to your health - and the danger is more than "just" riding a series of explosions miles away from the Earth's surface. Once outside of the protective bubble that is our atmosphere, astronauts are bombarded with all kinds of radiation and UV rays that are normally blocked by the very air we breathe.
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| Notice how far each bar gets into the atmosphere - most of the non-visible light rays are blocked! More information here |
We've talked about these effects before, but they are not alone: the human body reacts very strangely to constant weightlessness, after evolving for millions of years in a place where there is a very distinct downward force acting on us at all times. There's also the stress of spaceflight, an odd diet, and the complete inability to do something as simple as take a walk - astronauts lose a lot of muscle mass during their time in space.
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| That's why they have to take pictures like this when they land! (source) |
NASA knows all of this, so they're conducting a new experiment to study these effects. Crucial to any experiment is a controlled variable: a person or group that is in the same situation as those being tested, with one big difference, so that the effect of that difference can be measured. Astronauts are already extensively studied before and after they come back, but people change during their time on earth too - so NASA needs 2 identical people, one staying on earth and another to go into space.
The only identical people in the world, of course, are twins! Luckily, these twins are both astronauts - one retired, and the other about to spend a year in space while being compared in almost every way to his brother back on earth.
Which brother would you rather be?
Stay tuned - tomorrow I will report on the very real danger of asteroids. Happy Earth Day!
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