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A comprehensive review of medical data collected in the Inspiration4 project itself in 2021 revealed transient cognitive impairments and genetic changes within the team.
By Kenneth Chang
Space adjusts you, even if you’re off-planet.
Four other people who spent three days outside the Earth in September 2021 experienced physical and intellectual adjustments that included slight decreases in cognitive tests, an immune formula and genetic adjustments within their cells, the scientists report in a series of papers published Tuesday in the journal Nature and several other similar journals.
Almost everything that happened about astronauts returned to normal after landing on Earth. None of the changes appear to be a major precaution for long-term space travelers. But the results also highlighted the lack of wisdom of medical researchers.
Christopher Mason, a professor of genomics, body structure and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and one of the other people leading the research, called the collection of papers and data “the most in-depth review ever done by a team. “”, as he said at a press conference on Monday.
The 4 astronauts flew on a mission, known as Inspiration4, which was the first to orbit where none of the team members were professional astronauts. Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman, led the mission. Instead of bringing friends, he recruited three travelers who represented a larger component of society: Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant who survived cancer from her formative years; Sian Proctor, a teacher at a network school that teaches geosciences; and Christopher Sembroski, engineer.
Inspiration4 team members agreed to participate in medical experiments (collecting blood, urine, feces, and saliva samples during flight) and allow the knowledge to be cataloged in an online archive known as the Space Omics and Medical Atlas, or SOMA, which is publicly available.
Although the knowledge is anonymous, it doesn’t offer much privacy as there were only four team members on Inspiration4. “You can actually figure out who’s who,” Dr. Proctor said in an interview.
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