Fort Collins, Only about 600 people have ever traveled to space. The vast majority of astronauts over the past six decades have been middle-aged men on short-duration missions of less than 20 days.
Today, with the entry into the market of private, commercial and multinational spaceflight providers and travelers, we are witnessing a new era of human spaceflight. Missions have ranged from minutes, hours and days to months.
As humanity hopes to return to the Moon in the next decade, space exploration missions will be much longer, with many more space travelers and even space tourists. This also means that a broader diversity of people will experience the extreme environment of space: more women and people of different ethnicities, ages, and health statuses. Since people respond differently to the unique stressors and exposures of space, Space health researchers, like myself, seek to better understand the effects of space flight on human health. With such information, we can figure out how to help astronauts stay healthy while they are in space and once they return to Earth.
As part of NASA's landmark Twin Study, in 2019, my colleagues and I published groundbreaking research on how a year aboard the International Space Station affects the human body.
I am a radiological cancer biologist in the Department of Radiological and Environmental Health Sciences at Colorado State University. I have spent the last few years continuing to build on that earlier research in a series of papers recently published in Nature's portfolio of journals. These papers are part of the Space Omics and Medical Atlas suite of manuscripts, data, protocols and repositories that represent the collection. largest ever assembled for aerospace medicine and biology. More than 100 institutions from 25 countries contributed to the coordinated publication of a wide range of spaceflight data.
The NASA Twins Study
NASA's Twin Study took advantage of a unique research opportunity. NASA selected astronaut Scott Kelly for the agency's first year-long mission, during which he spent a year aboard the International Space Station from 2015 to 2016. During the same period, his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and current US senator representing Arizona, remained on Earth.
My team and I examined blood samples collected from the twin in space and his genetically matched twin on Earth before, during and after space flight. We found that Scott's telomeres (the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, much like the plastic tip that prevents a shoelace from fraying) lengthened, quite unexpectedly, during his year in space.
However, when Scott returned to Earth, his telomeres shortened rapidly. Over the next few months, his telomeres recovered, but after the trip he was still shorter than before he went to space. As we age, telomeres shorten due to a variety of factors, including stress. Telomere length may serve as a biological indicator of your risk of developing age-related conditions such as dementia, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
In a separate study, my team studied a cohort of 10 astronauts on six-month missions aboard the International Space Station. We also had a control group of participants of the same age and sex who remained on the ground.
We measured telomere length before, during and after spaceflight and again found that telomeres were longer during spaceflight and then shortened upon return to Earth. Overall, astronauts had many more short telomeres after spaceflight than before. One of the other Twin Study researchers, Christopher Mason, and I conducted another telomere study, this time with high-altitude mountaineering twins. , in a somewhat similar extreme environment on Earth.
We found that while climbing Mount Everest, climbers' telomeres were longer, and after descending, their telomeres shortened. Their twins who remained at low altitude did not experience the same changes in telomere length. These results indicate that it is not the microgravity of the space station that caused the changes in telomere length that we observed in astronauts; it is more likely that there are other culprits, such as increased radiation exposure.
Civilians in spaceIn our latest study, we studied the telomeres of the crew aboard SpaceX's 2021 Inspiration4 mission. This mission featured the first all-civilian crew, whose ages spanned four decades. The telomeres of all crew members lengthened during the mission, and three of the four astronauts also showed telomere shortening once they returned to Earth.
What is particularly interesting about these findings is that the Inspiration4 mission lasted only three days. So not only do scientists now have consistent and reproducible data on the telomere response to spaceflight, but we also know that it happens quickly. These results suggest that even short trips, such as a weekend getaway to space, will be associated with changes in telomere length.
Scientists still do not fully understand the health impacts of such changes in telomere length. We'll need more research to find out how long and short telomeres might affect an astronaut's long-term health.Telomeric RNA
In another paper, we showed that the Inspiration4 crew, as well as Scott Kelly and high-altitude climbers, exhibited elevated levels of telomeric RNA, called TERRA.
Telomeres consist of many repetitive DNA sequences. These are transcribed into TERRA, which contributes to the structure of telomeres and helps them do their job. Together with laboratory studies, these findings tell us that telomeres are damaged during space flight. While there is still a lot we don't know, we do know that telomeres are especially sensitive to oxidative stress. Therefore, the chronic oxidative damage that astronauts experience when exposed to space radiation 24 hours a day likely contributes to the telomeric responses we observed.
We also wrote a review article with a more futuristic perspective on how a better understanding of telomeres and aging could begin to inform the ability of humans to not only survive long-duration space travel but also to thrive and even colonize other planets. Doing so would require humans to reproduce in space and future generations to grow up in space. We don't know if that's possible... yet.
Planting telomeres in space My colleagues and I also contributed other work to the Space Omics and Medical Atlas package, including a paper published in Nature Communications. The study team, led by Texas A&M biologist Dorothy Shippen and Ohio University biologist Sarah Wyatt, found that unlike people, plants that flew into space did not have longer telomeres during their time on board. of the International Space Station.
However, the plants increased their production of telomerase, the enzyme that helps maintain telomere length.
As anyone who has seen “The Martian” knows, plants will play an essential role in long-term human survival in space. This finding suggests that plants may be more naturally prepared to withstand the stressors of space than humans. (The conversation)SGP
Today, with the entry into the market of private, commercial and multinational spaceflight providers and travelers, we are witnessing a new era of human spaceflight. Missions have ranged from minutes, hours and days to months.
As humanity hopes to return to the Moon in the next decade, space exploration missions will be much longer, with many more space travelers and even space tourists. This also means that a broader diversity of people will experience the extreme environment of space: more women and people of different ethnicities, ages, and health statuses. Since people respond differently to the unique stressors and exposures of space, Space health researchers, like myself, seek to better understand the effects of space flight on human health. With such information, we can figure out how to help astronauts stay healthy while they are in space and once they return to Earth.
As part of NASA's landmark Twin Study, in 2019, my colleagues and I published groundbreaking research on how a year aboard the International Space Station affects the human body.
I am a radiological cancer biologist in the Department of Radiological and Environmental Health Sciences at Colorado State University. I have spent the last few years continuing to build on that earlier research in a series of papers recently published in Nature's portfolio of journals. These papers are part of the Space Omics and Medical Atlas suite of manuscripts, data, protocols and repositories that represent the collection. largest ever assembled for aerospace medicine and biology. More than 100 institutions from 25 countries contributed to the coordinated publication of a wide range of spaceflight data.
The NASA Twins Study
NASA's Twin Study took advantage of a unique research opportunity. NASA selected astronaut Scott Kelly for the agency's first year-long mission, during which he spent a year aboard the International Space Station from 2015 to 2016. During the same period, his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and current US senator representing Arizona, remained on Earth.
My team and I examined blood samples collected from the twin in space and his genetically matched twin on Earth before, during and after space flight. We found that Scott's telomeres (the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, much like the plastic tip that prevents a shoelace from fraying) lengthened, quite unexpectedly, during his year in space.
However, when Scott returned to Earth, his telomeres shortened rapidly. Over the next few months, his telomeres recovered, but after the trip he was still shorter than before he went to space. As we age, telomeres shorten due to a variety of factors, including stress. Telomere length may serve as a biological indicator of your risk of developing age-related conditions such as dementia, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
In a separate study, my team studied a cohort of 10 astronauts on six-month missions aboard the International Space Station. We also had a control group of participants of the same age and sex who remained on the ground.
We measured telomere length before, during and after spaceflight and again found that telomeres were longer during spaceflight and then shortened upon return to Earth. Overall, astronauts had many more short telomeres after spaceflight than before. One of the other Twin Study researchers, Christopher Mason, and I conducted another telomere study, this time with high-altitude mountaineering twins. , in a somewhat similar extreme environment on Earth.
We found that while climbing Mount Everest, climbers' telomeres were longer, and after descending, their telomeres shortened. Their twins who remained at low altitude did not experience the same changes in telomere length. These results indicate that it is not the microgravity of the space station that caused the changes in telomere length that we observed in astronauts; it is more likely that there are other culprits, such as increased radiation exposure.
Civilians in spaceIn our latest study, we studied the telomeres of the crew aboard SpaceX's 2021 Inspiration4 mission. This mission featured the first all-civilian crew, whose ages spanned four decades. The telomeres of all crew members lengthened during the mission, and three of the four astronauts also showed telomere shortening once they returned to Earth.
What is particularly interesting about these findings is that the Inspiration4 mission lasted only three days. So not only do scientists now have consistent and reproducible data on the telomere response to spaceflight, but we also know that it happens quickly. These results suggest that even short trips, such as a weekend getaway to space, will be associated with changes in telomere length.
Scientists still do not fully understand the health impacts of such changes in telomere length. We'll need more research to find out how long and short telomeres might affect an astronaut's long-term health.Telomeric RNA
In another paper, we showed that the Inspiration4 crew, as well as Scott Kelly and high-altitude climbers, exhibited elevated levels of telomeric RNA, called TERRA.
Telomeres consist of many repetitive DNA sequences. These are transcribed into TERRA, which contributes to the structure of telomeres and helps them do their job. Together with laboratory studies, these findings tell us that telomeres are damaged during space flight. While there is still a lot we don't know, we do know that telomeres are especially sensitive to oxidative stress. Therefore, the chronic oxidative damage that astronauts experience when exposed to space radiation 24 hours a day likely contributes to the telomeric responses we observed.
We also wrote a review article with a more futuristic perspective on how a better understanding of telomeres and aging could begin to inform the ability of humans to not only survive long-duration space travel but also to thrive and even colonize other planets. Doing so would require humans to reproduce in space and future generations to grow up in space. We don't know if that's possible... yet.
Planting telomeres in space My colleagues and I also contributed other work to the Space Omics and Medical Atlas package, including a paper published in Nature Communications. The study team, led by Texas A&M biologist Dorothy Shippen and Ohio University biologist Sarah Wyatt, found that unlike people, plants that flew into space did not have longer telomeres during their time on board. of the International Space Station.
However, the plants increased their production of telomerase, the enzyme that helps maintain telomere length.
As anyone who has seen “The Martian” knows, plants will play an essential role in long-term human survival in space. This finding suggests that plants may be more naturally prepared to withstand the stressors of space than humans. (The conversation)SGP
