How studying what space travel does to astronauts' health is leading to innovations on Earth

Toronto Star

03-06-2025

When astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico following a nine month space odyssey — what was initially meant to be a mere eight-day test flight — crews had to carry out their atrophied bodies from the SpaceX capsule and onto stretchers.
It's become a common procedure for astronauts returning from extended travels in space, who often experience intense nausea and difficulty walking on re-entry to Earth, experts said.
Our bodies, evolved over hundreds of millennia to adapt to Earth's environments, are not designed to survive in the cosmos.
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'Space as a whole is an extreme environment. And it can be very disabling, even to the fittest individual,' said Dr. Farhan Asrar, associate dean at Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Medicine and a global faculty member at International Space University.
As researchers examine deep space travel, longer voyages and even the colonization of other planets, the question of how we can keep humans healthy in space has become a vital one.
A new commentary by Asrar, published in Nature Monday, delves into the key challenges with space medicine — as well as the myriad of benefits the endeavour has had on Earthbound health care.
What space travel does to the human body
Space travel can affect us in numerous, often surprising ways.
Away from the protection of Earth's ozone layer, the human body will be bombarded by extreme levels of radiation. It's estimated that astronauts on their way to Mars will experience what amounts to a year's worth of radiation on Earth every day of their months-long voyage.
This can significantly raise one's risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and more, Asrar said. 'And now, people are focusing on looking at deep space voyages — the radiation tends to be even higher there.'
Then there's the lack of gravity. Our bones, muscles and heart are calibrated to strain against this fundamental force; in its absence, these systems can quickly start breaking from disuse, explained Mathieu Caron, director of astronauts, life sciences and space medicine at the Canadian Space Agency.
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The effects are similar to accelerated ageing: 'Six months in space can correspond to about ten or sometimes even 20 years of aging on the ground,' Caron, who is not affiliated with Asrar's paper, said. 'Fortunately for the astronauts, when they come back down on Earth, they can actually recover a lot of what they've lost.'
Time spent in microgravity, combined with the radiation exposure, can ravage our bodies and lead to losses in bone density, vision changes due to fluid shifts in the eyes or even organ damage, Asrar's paper reads. In some cases, the damage was lasting, he said — some astronauts had to start wearing glasses or reported bone fractures after returning to Earth.
On top of all the physical hurdles, astronauts must also contend with the psychological toll of what may be months spent in a cramped, dangerous and stressful environment, away from loved ones, he continued.
'On Earth, if someone has a health issue, you can immediately call an ambulance or go to the ER,' Asrar said. 'But in space, obviously, it just makes the health care delivery so much more challenging.'
How do astronauts stay healthy in space?
Astronauts undergo a great deal of preparation both before, during and after their space trips to ensure their health — including health checks and training before flight, regular physical conditioning while in space and weeks of physical therapy and rehabilitation after re-entry to Earth. But for trips into deep space, these may not be enough.
Asrar's paper defined four 'key strands' of space medicine critical for mission success, as well as human health on Earth: Remote health care, mental health, food production and basic human biology.
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Astronauts depend on telemedicine to monitor and support their health, Asrar writes. But long space voyages can disrupt this process; it can take 20 minutes each way for astronauts on Mars to communicate with doctors on Earth — much too long when dealing with emergencies like a heart attack, for example.
The development of artificial intelligence health systems may provide a solution. But there are still more issues to contend with; many ingredients in medications degrade faster as a result of the intense radiation, for example, and resupplying crucial medicines in deep space is 'infeasible,' Asrar's paper reads.
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Then there's the challenge of maintaining mental health amid the fatigue, stress and isolation of space travel. While further research is needed on this front, advancements are being made, from lighting systems meant to maintain more conventional circadian rhythms to virtual-reality headsets.
It could take seven to ten months to travel to space — meaning spacefarers would need to produce their own food. On this front, a number of new systems that require few resources to grow fruits and veggies in harsh environments are being developed.
Finally, Asrar and Caron note there is still much unknown about how extended space trips will affect our biology.
'The International Space Station is really close, relatively speaking, to the Earth,' Caron said. 'But if we venture towards the moon, that's about a thousand times further away. Mars is a million times farther away. We really, absolutely need to know what happens to the human body before we reach those destinations.'
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How space health care is leading new innovations on Earth
Each of the four strands identified by Asrar come with significant benefits for health care on Earth.
For example, advancements in telemedicine have helped deliver crucial care to members of remote communities and have skyrocketed in use during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Asrar said. Similarly, optimizations in the dosage and storage of drugs may help improve medications on Earth, his paper read.
Meanwhile, insights into maintaining mental health in isolation have proven invaluable in resolving Earthbound crises — Asrar's paper noted that, in 2010, the Chilean government consulted NASA when 33 Chilean miners were trapped underground.
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Improving food production can help feed isolated communities struggling with food insecurity; if we can grow veggies in the void of space, we can grow them in the harsh environment of northern Canada, Asrar said.
Finally, insights into how human biology unravels in space can lead to a better understanding of our own bodies. Even the struggle to keep astronauts physically fit in space has translated into sports medicine and athletics on Earth, he said.
'There's a number of areas where I would say that space has been playing a role — especially when we look at things that are being developed for deep space missions — that would be relevant for us here on Earth,' Asrar concluded.