• Question: how do you study what will happen to the body in space?

    Asked by ALEX TUCKETT to Julia on 5 Dec 2015.
    • Photo: Julia Attias

      Julia Attias answered on 5 Dec 2015:

      Well this is a very interesting question, and a very important one, because we can’t just go up to space and test things so we have to find other ways of studying it.

      One of the main ways to test what happens to the body in space is to get people laying down completely flat, with their head tilted back by 6 degrees. It’s called, would you believe, “6 degree head down tilt”! For as long as someone stays in that posture, the same things will happen to them as what happens to astronauts in space, so its a great Earth-based method of understanding what will happen to astronauts.

      The astronaut population if you think about it is very small in comparison to humans on Earth, so most things that we know come from this bed rest simulation. The only challenge is trying to find people who are happy to lay in bed and not move for weeks on end :p

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