Northwestern Scientists Prepare For End Of Historic Space Study
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Northwestern University was hosting a viewing party Tuesday to watch astronaut Scott Kelly return from a nearly year-long trip to space as part of an unprecedented study on the long-term effects of spaceflight on the human body.
"It's a little bit of an unusual study design, but it works," said Northwestern neurobiology professor Martha Hotz Vitaterna, who is one of the scientists conducting research on Scott Kelly and his twin brother, Mark.
Scott Kelly has been on the International Space Station since March 27, 2015, and will land back on Earth late Tuesday night. While he's been in space, his brother, a former NASA astronaut, participated in parallel studies on Earth.
"The importance of his twin brother is that that gives us an idea of how much normal change happens," she said. "It's not that we're comparing Scott to Mark, it's comparing Scott to himself and Mark to himself."
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Researchers want to find out how living in space affects overall health, including sleep. The International Space Station orbits earth every 90 minutes, or 16 times a day.
"That's a lot more sunrises and sunsets than one normally experiences," Vitaterna said.
Scientists want to know how astronauts hold up, because space flights are only going to get longer, especially if NASA eventually launches a manned mission to Mars.
"Going, staying for about a year, and then coming back. That's the initial manned mission to Mars idea," Vitaterna said.
Researchers need to know everything about astronauts, from how they sleep, to what's going on in their bowels.
"You're studying poops in space, really," she said. "A lot of the things that happen in space, we know, will change what microorganisms are likely to survive in the GI tract, and those could be very important to human health and well-being."
