What affects does zero-g over an extended period of time have on the human body?

Question

For instance, when humans travel to mars and spend several months to years in space with no gravity. Does it affect their internal organs and blood pressure?

So if we leave someone to life on the spacestation and they have to survive in zero-g, how long would thier life expectancy be?

Answer 1

being at zero G's for an extended period of time definately affects how your body functions. The main part of your body it affects is your muscle and skeletal systems. Without the pull of gravity that your body is accustomed to on earth(1g) your muscles and skeletal system experience atropy because they are not being used the way they were designed. Over extended periods of time with no exercise and not experienceing the force of gravity coming back down to earth or any celestial body with signifigant mass to create gravity would be like trying to get up and walk around on earth with an extra 200 pounds on your back. You would definately need time to build your muscles back to wear they were before

Answer 2

There is muscle and bone loss. Exercise seems to slow or even stop the muscle loss, but nothing so far has had any effect on the bone loss. After 6 months in space, even with vigorous exercise every day, astronauts continue to have more and more bone loss. And the loss continues for several months after returning to Earth. Eventually, after being on Earth again long enough, the bone loss reverses and they start gaining back bone mass, but even after years back on Earth not all original bone mass has been restored.

There are also reduced immune system function and drug absorption. So weightlessness is a serious problem for any flight long enough to go to Mars and back.

Answer 3

Kidney stones!

It is difficult to appreciate just have gravity helps to hold our shape. Without gravity, many body fluids in areas such as the legs and abdomen rise up into the thorax, causing a puffy appearance and "chicken legs". All this extra fluid in the thorax tricks the body into thinking it has too much water,and the kidneys go into overdrive as the astronauts sprint for their scary tube-thing.

Meanwhile, the lack of stain of the muscles and bones cause them to waste away. Rapid decalcification occurs, and that Calcium has to go somewhere! It ends up in the blood, which is already being rapidly filtered by the kidneys. Massive backups of Calcium ions in the kidneys solidify into stones, and suddenly your astronauts are a lot less happy.

Answer 4

aside from the zero-g causing decalcification, spending this amount of time in space would likely cause extensive damage to the human body due to lack of protection from neutrinos and other particles from the sun. The earths magnetosphere protects us from these and without it the thin shielding on spacecraft does very little - your DNA is effectively being shredded - so you might, if you were lucky, get to mars but you would likely be sterile and riddled with cancer.

Hands up any volunteers

Answer 5

According to Einstein's General relativity theory, as the "g" (acceleration) aproaches zero Time becomes very large(time dilation ).
Therefore as per the theory processes would take a very long time to complete ,Hence , it becomes very very slugish.
However in the Space lab, Astronauts dont seem to have any averse effect. Perhaps on a long term basis Einstein's theory onTime would prove to be true and the process of the body would come to a screeching halt in zero gravity field.

Answer 6

A loss of bone mass (calcium) and muscle tone. If memory serves, I believe it is much as 30% in a year.