Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Space Medicine

Episode Date: January 6, 2017

Is 2017 the year that everybody gets to go to space? Well, no, probably not. But the groundwork is there for us to do it thanks to the doctors and astronauts that pioneered space medicine. Music: "Me...dicines" by The Taxpayers

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to Saul Bones, a metal tour of misguided medicine.
Starting point is 00:01:07 I'm your co-host Justin Tyler McElroy. And I'm Sydney and Smirl McElroy. That's not your name anymore. It was the name. I destroyed Anne. You destroyed Anne first. I destroyed Anne with our marriage. There is no more Sydney in.
Starting point is 00:01:23 There is only Sydney. Smirl. There is only Sydney. Smurl. There is only Mrs. McElroy. Oh no, no, that's not going to fly. I'm sorry, it's Dr. McElroy. Dr. Justin and Sydney. No, okay, you don't see, you don't get to be a doctor just because I am. Well, it's just the one doctor at the beginning.
Starting point is 00:01:44 Could I make sure, I really want to make sure you never accidentally get an honorary doctorate. I worry about that. With you achieving levels of internet celebrity, there's always the fear that someone will want to give you an honorary doctorate and then you're going to get to be doctorate. And then it is quite literally my life goal. That will help. That's an honorary doctorate. Please, no one, everyone listening, do not give just an honorary document. An honorary document.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Talk to people you know who can make that happen for me, okay? No. Please. But it's a new year, it's 2017, that could happen. The year's full of possibilities. We've put away garbage year 2016, the dumpster where it belongs. And now we've moved on to good year 2017 good year
Starting point is 00:02:26 Excellent year. Is that the good year? Good year. It's full of possibilities full of opportunities This is gonna be the year. I mean who knows I'm I'm yeah, I don't know the sky you're gonna do Taekwondo I'm gonna take some Taekwondo classes get I'm gonna take baths tack on dough. I'm going to take a tack on dough classes. I'm going to take baths more. Baths more and more baths. That's a really important thing. Maybe 2017's the year we go to space. I've talked to you about this.
Starting point is 00:02:51 Wait, like, like you and me go to space or like the human right. Because I mean, you know the human race is like we've been to space. No, like us personally. I mean, okay. Just making sure. Like, we've totally been there. The future is moving very fast and it seems like private space travel's taking off, and I feel like 2017 might be the year
Starting point is 00:03:06 that I get to go to space or become an honorary doctor. One of those two, I think, is almost, like a lot of averages, one of the two is gonna happen. Probably not, but since you're interested in space, do you wanna talk about space medicine? That sounds very futuristic, like bones McCoy, that kind of thing. No, like bones of a coy, that kind of thing. No, like, actually...
Starting point is 00:03:25 Dr. Nata, you know, whatever he says. Right, that thing. The second part. Never watched, can't. Can't? You saw the movies, two of the movies. Did I see two? You saw it, did you see the one with a Benedict Cumberbatch?
Starting point is 00:03:41 No. So you saw one of the movies? I saw one of the movies. There's someone who is a doctor and not other things, right? Okay, moving on. a Benedict Cumberbatch? No. So you saw one of the movies? I saw one of the movies. There's someone who is a doctor and not other things, right? Okay, moving on. That is the point of that day. Sorry, you had something to say?
Starting point is 00:03:51 Charlie asked me if Tarzan was in Star Trek, and I said, yeah. Yeah, sure. Just do antagonize me, I think. Just do antagonize, Justin. No, Space Medicine is a real thing, honey. I know. Okay, well, I didn't know if you really knew. The dumb thing's a bit. I mean, I'm a sharp guy. I'm not like the top of the pack, but like, I'm in the middle somewhere.
Starting point is 00:04:06 Space medicine is a real thing. People really, you know, I mean, as you can imagine, outer space, humans and outer space, presents a whole new set of challenges for like, what does that do to the human body? And so there was not a long history when it comes to space medicine because, you know, we had to figure out that we could go there first. Sure. But it is really interesting because the history of space travel is so there's this accelerated timeline that happens where we kind of had to figure things out really quickly.
Starting point is 00:04:44 So likewise doctors had to figure things out really quickly. So likewise doctors had to figure things out really quickly. So it's interesting. Not necessarily in the usual saw bones fashion of stupid stuff though. It's more just really smart, interesting stuff. Well, let's hear about it. So in May 1961, JFK said we're going to put a man on the moon within the decade. And then one guy in the room shot his hand up was like dibs. He's like, no, I mean, we'll pick that later. We'll pick who it is later. We're not picking it now, Doug.
Starting point is 00:05:15 Put your hand down, Doug. This is the first come, like shotgun. Yeah, Doug. This was, of course. That man was a young Joe Biden insert, you know? That would be a young Joe Biden in Surrey, you know, that would be a young Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden. NASA was not very old.
Starting point is 00:05:30 NASA was only a few years old at this point. So obviously this was challenging from a technical perspective, you know, space flight, but also from a medical perspective, because what, how do you, we don't, we can't study humans in space until we put them there. We can kind of replicate some conditions on earth, but it's very difficult. So there were a lot of questions. People had already been studying it for a while.
Starting point is 00:05:57 We've been studying this concept really since the 40s, but nobody had all the answers. There was some ground mark already laid for this. The birth of space medicine is really when we look back to like early flight medicine. So as we got better at building airplanes that went faster and higher, we had to deal with the effects of speed and altitude on humans.
Starting point is 00:06:22 And so we had some of that kind of research and data that we could extrapolate from, if that makes sense. Like, well, if we're thinking to launch somebody to space, we have to go this much faster, this much more velocity would have this effect on the human body, et cetera, et cetera. Sure, because we've been testing stuff like that since I would assume since, you know, planes were became part of the military. Yeah, exactly. Well, since the right brothers sure, yeah, flew.
Starting point is 00:06:49 Um, specifically the Air Force obviously did a lot of this research and it's predecessor the Army Air Corps because the Air Force was originally part of the Army. Right. And in that actually, I'm impressed. I know that because my pop-up was in it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Since World War One, the flight surgeon was an essential part of the team, and a flight surgeon
Starting point is 00:07:08 has more than just a medical role. Obviously, they take medical care of pilots, but they also have to ensure standards for pilots for physical and medical fitness. They also play the role in developing the gear and the equipment that would be used to protect humans in these new atmospheric and whatnot conditions, which is a really interesting role for a doctor to play, and an integral part of doctors who work with space medicine now. It's not just doing exams and diagnosing people at treating them. I mean, they have like a technical job, too, developing spacesuits and whatnot as an example. So it's a really interesting
Starting point is 00:07:47 field of medicine for that reason. Um, and like I said, we already kind of had some roots in flight medicine because not only were we putting people in planes, but we also had been sending people up really high in balloons for a while. Mm-hmm. Like if you look at a lot of the early out of the tank study, Yeah, like we were putting people in hot air balloons and being like, just go really high. Let us know. Let's see what happens. Yeah, take this camera up and just record yourself until you lose it. There are all these records you can read about.
Starting point is 00:08:17 And then this guy went this high in a balloon and then this lieutenant went this high in a balloon and everyone was very impressed, which doesn't sound impressive now. Like you went after a balloon. No, it's super impressive because if you're like a dumb earthling, you know there is a height at which you die. Like there's a height at which you're gonna die.
Starting point is 00:08:36 And like you don't know what the lead up to that is. You don't know like how high that is. You don't know how close your buddies got. Like I hope I'm not the one. Like, I just feel like there's a height at which you die. And you have to know that. That's intense. I mean, it's slow.
Starting point is 00:08:53 Like, you would probably see it coming. Like, oh, no, this is feeling a little hot. I feel like I'm not breathing very well. Oh, no. This is not good. I have to get back down to earth in the next three hours. We also, obviously, were investigating how fast humans could go because like, we had broken the sound barrier.
Starting point is 00:09:09 Chuck Yeager. I thought this was a good moment to know. West Virginia's own, the pride of honey didn't West for no, no honey. Not honey, but West Virginia. West Virginia. I met him. I shook his hand.
Starting point is 00:09:19 He hugged me. He was a cold dude. I feel like we've talked about Chuck Yeager before because we talked about him. When he does the lectures for the Ager Society, how he'll... He shows up in sweatpants. He shows up in sweatpants. Well, tracksuit.
Starting point is 00:09:30 A tracksuit, and shows a short film about himself, which is like, so rock and roll, and sorry, if I did something 1,000-thousand this cool as break the sound barrier, you would never stop. I would be insufferable. Like, PS, if you want to treat, follow him on Twitter. Oh, he's crashing it, yeah. Let me just say. A lot of early medical advances were also based on research
Starting point is 00:09:52 that was gathered after World War II that was taken from the Germans. So we took all of the research that they had already been doing and basically kind of open literature published at all by the US military and said, look, this research is out there. Now we can all use it. So there are a lot of quick advances that were made by compiling all that research together. You link.
Starting point is 00:10:16 And then they built off kinds of like laboratories and different things on earth to try to, like I said, replicate some of these conditions so that we could study them better So at the US Naval School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola They had things like low pressure chambers. They had like this Radiation laboratory because everybody was worried like what do we do when we get up near the Sun and we have Radiation from the Sun we don't know There was like a slow rotation room and something called a human disorientation device. Which sounds like weird.
Starting point is 00:10:50 It's pretty intense. Yeah, I mean, I always imagine that like now we're getting into like weird LSD experiments. Yeah, it seems like I'm a side effect than like an intentional thing. Back in the late 1940s, we started with things like seeds and fruit flies, sending them up into space for very short flights, and then bringing them back and being like, did they make it?
Starting point is 00:11:15 And then we started with animals, things like monkeys and mice, and sending them up for various periods of time, and then bringing them back. And again, a lot of it was what happens to them when they're in, especially weightless conditions, was a big question and then can they make it back? It took us a few years before we were able to successfully retrieve a mouse from space. What about monkeys?
Starting point is 00:11:39 They were all fine, right? So that took us later. That took longer. Yeah, but they were fine. All the monkeys. Yeah, Justin. The monkeys were fine.. Yeah, but they were fine. All the monkeys. Yeah, Justin the monkeys were fine Oh, they were monkeys were fine. It came back down guy banana did some funny tricks Put on a diaper
Starting point is 00:11:53 Yeah, that's that's how it happened anyway moving on the at one point the impressive thing that people don't talk about enough is how is how long it must have taken to train the monkeys to fly a spaceship. Because that is, I'm assuming a very intense thing. You don't just push the two space button. Like, it's an intensive thing. And I can't, and the work that we had to do to train... Like, of course, we'd bring them back safely. They're highly trained astronauts.
Starting point is 00:12:23 Duh. You know, well... Duh. You know, well, duh. I did, I did read, I know you're joking. I did read that one monkey was trained for like 18 months before it was sent up in like a simple task. So they could witness it doing simple tasks. The simple task was weirdly space kung fu. They were worried about aliens with martial arts training.
Starting point is 00:12:47 And they spent 18 months training, Chimbo, the Kung Fu fighting chimp, to fight Martians who they wouldn't care. They didn't know. It was a permanent era. We assumed we were going into space to fight Martians. Yeah, with Kung Fu, with Monkey Kung Fu. Well, they have Santa.
Starting point is 00:13:03 There's that old movie where Santa's on Mars. We have to go save him with a monkey training Kung Fu Exactly precisely There was this I was reading about this one space flight project project Mercury and at one point there was like this note like we kind of ran out of rockets For a bit and we had to make some more so we experimented back with blue I'm so very sick when you showed up to pick one out. Like, no, we're not going any. But they're like, well, so we went back to balloons for a little bit. And so we sent some mice and some hamsters up and balloons and then brought them back. That's
Starting point is 00:13:32 how that went. It's like half a rolled doll book right there. That's adorable. Yeah. You see them like looking up over the edge of the basket. How's it going? Bad. And so starting from like 1949, there are just hundreds of studies that are published testing all these different effects of like, if we send you up in flight, what happens to fluid and food intake and like, you know, how do your kidneys function and how do you pee in space? And like, what happens to your eyes? They did things like sealed cabin human isolation studies
Starting point is 00:14:03 if we put a human inside this room with other humans. What do they do? And like what happens to your eyes, they did things like sealed cabin human isolation studies if we put a human inside this room with other humans, what do they do? What are the cardio, like cardio dynamics, what happens to your heart and your vascular system when you're weightless, things like the psychophysics of weightlessness, so, I mean, just like what happens to your whole body to all your organ systems
Starting point is 00:14:24 and everything that's happening inside of you, how will you feel and all that. So, they did all these studies. There are lots of them you can read. There was one that I found that was pretty interesting because I think what was fascinating to me is how worried they were about not just the physical fitness of humans in space, but psychologically, I think that's a big consideration what it will do to you to be trapped in a small room, weightless, with other humans for a long periods of time, and you can't leave, and that sounds upsetting to me personally. Yeah, yeah, less than ideal. So I found one study where they took six men and they put them in a chamber that allowed about 75 cubic feet per person and they put them in there for eight days
Starting point is 00:15:13 and they tried it first at like a simulated altitude of 10,000 feet and then they repeated it at sea level to see what altitude had effect on and that kind of thing. And while they did it, they measured heart rate, respiratory rate, their temperature, the electrical conductance of their skin to look for like a rousal, not sexual rousal, like anxious or rousal. Try to see if like anxiety or try to see if confinement would be too anxiety producing basically. And they had lots of tasks that they gave the men to like maintain their oxygen levels. Now, these were simulated tasks. They had oxygen, don't worry.
Starting point is 00:15:50 But they wanted to be like space flight where you're not just gonna be chilling, like you're gonna be doing stuff. So they had all these tasks that they had them do. And then on day five, they introduced this emergency situation where everybody had to react very quickly and deal with a lot of stress and then they just took all these measurements like every 20 minutes the whole time they did this and from all this they concluded that the confinement wasn't really any more stressful than
Starting point is 00:16:20 then just like a base level of like the emergency situation they introduced was pretty stressful, but overall they handled everything else pretty well. So they did a lot of studies like that. My favorite, the reason I mentioned this one is that there's a note in this study, and I like, I love the way scientists write, because what they say is that after they introduced the emergency, as a result, the crew became disorganized and confused in their behavior and failed to function as a team. After the emergency, the crew tended to blame the experimenters outside the chamber for their confusion and displayed great hostility by cursing and other aggressive behavior, which lasted the remaining three days of the study. As time goes, it um explain your job people like I'm an astronaut, except I do all the astronaut things, but the one thing is I am just in a building somewhere in Florida.
Starting point is 00:17:17 But other than that, I'm an astronaut. Most of the time. Most of the time. But sometimes I just hang out in this building with other dudes. So you got a space and like do a bunch of, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't know how to do that yet. No, we don't know how to do that yet. What I'm mainly doing is just like chilling in a very small space and trying to stay cool.
Starting point is 00:17:37 Now, now through all these studies, they came up with criteria for astronauts. That was a big part of it was, let's do a bunch of studies and figure out who can go into space what what do we need to do to make sure they're okay. So this included they came up with like a few characteristics. They need to have environmental stress capacity. They need to be tough. They need to be resilient. They need to have motor skills, perceptual skills. They initially said they had to be at least 35. They later changed it to at least 39. Just because changed it to at least 39. Just because the technical skills and qualifications they needed, it was hard to meet by 35.
Starting point is 00:18:11 They had to have either an engineering or some kind of scientific degree because of the technical skill you would need. They could be no more than 5'11. That makes sense. Because of the size of the capital. It's happening up so much of the spacecraft. And so initially they only chose from like military test pilots because they wanted people who were like tough and fearless.
Starting point is 00:18:31 And so that's where they kind of, they went. Sure. It's the closest you could get I would guess. Exactly, exactly. They did tons of testing on these people. They did eye examinations. They took pictures of their retinas. They did, I mean, really invasive testing,
Starting point is 00:18:45 they looked at their larynx and they did EKGs and tilt table tests and just all kinds of like neurological tests, they made them do like seizure tests, the EEG, the thing where they put all the electrodes on your head and make sure you don't have seizures and then made them like hyperventilate and do it again and make sure they were okay, they did, they did procto sigmoidoscopy. What is okay? I know what the first part happens about. Yeah. This is like an early form of a
Starting point is 00:19:14 colonoscopy sort of thing. They did a lot of labs including a stool inspection and a sperm count. Yeah well we do know the Martian women, we don't know how their system will function, but we want to make sure if it doesn't work, it's not on our end. That there was no explanation for this sperm count. Well, I can't understand. Maybe they wanted to know like if it dropped to zero after they went into space Well, okay, they wanted to say like listen no, no, no, no, no, that was not us Okay, that you were at Zilch beforehand, okay?
Starting point is 00:19:55 Okay, sure that was just a cover cover their butts. Yeah, they did stress tests pulmonary function tests They x-rayed them from top to bottom and then they did a bunch of different tests of like their Mental and social well-being is the way they put it. They want to make sure that they are psychologically prepared for space travel. So some of some examples of some tests that they did. One was called the Harvard Step Test where they just made you step up 20 inches to a platform and down every two seconds for five minutes. They did something called a cold presser test where you put your feet in a tub of ice water and then just checked your pulse and blood pressure. I'm sitting here thinking I could do the Harvard Sceptice, but I probably probably couldn't.
Starting point is 00:20:31 I bet it's like power hour. We're like, it doesn't sound like a lot of beer, but yeah, it's a lot of beer actually. Pretty bad. We could do the cold presser test. I could do that. Remember, I did it when we were taking that prenatal class. Oh, that's right, yeah. Yeah, I'm really good at sticking my hand in ice water
Starting point is 00:20:46 for a long time. They did a lot of isolation tests where they would just put them in dark soundproof rooms for three hours. Yeah. See how they do. And then there were a lot of other psychiatric tests. They did the Rorschach test, the classic inkblot tests and interviews, tatam like draw a person,
Starting point is 00:21:03 finish this sentence. What, something that would determine their attitudes inkblot tests and interviews, tatam like draw a person, finish this sentence. Something that would determine their attitudes towards authority. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And then interpretation of the question, who am I? Hmm. Hmm.
Starting point is 00:21:18 Who am I? Who am I in space? A Martian sympathizer. Okay, you're out. You're out. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Fall for the oldest trick of the book.
Starting point is 00:21:26 There also was a lot that was happening at the time, engineering the suits that they would wear. And just one interesting note that I found is that early space suits, because they were just designed for really short flights at first. I mean, we're talking people were going up in space for, you know, 36 hours. Sure, right. Sure. Early suits just had a container that would collect all your urine.
Starting point is 00:21:46 Mm, dump it when you go. Exactly. Just wear that, wear that. And they also would intentionally eat what we would call like low residual diets for a few days ahead of time, meaning diets that would not make you have to be him in space. And I think it's gonna be a long long time to touch things around again to find my bladder bag is totally full. So full, so full, and I haven't poooons. I haven't poooons. I never knew that's what that song was about. It's about entering your bladder bag and not pooping.
Starting point is 00:22:23 So what else said to me more? I'm going to tell you more Justin, but why don't you come with me to the billing department? Let's go. So we were getting closer to the modern era, Sid. That's right. So obviously, once we figured out, like I said, we sent people up into space for short flights at first, 30 odd hours, and such, just to see the effects. Again, our biggest fears were weightlessness, altitude, or weightlessness, radiation from
Starting point is 00:22:55 the sun. The speed of takeoff was a big concern. Martian light orders. And then a lot of stuff we couldn't predict, just what was going to happen to people when they were in space. For instance, when we finally started actually sending astronauts up to the moon, the question was, is there stuff on the moon that's dangerous to us? We have no idea. Now, here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:23:20 A lot of scientists did have an idea. The answer was no. Listen, we know a lot about space did have an idea. The answer was no, listen. We know a lot about space even though we haven't been there. We've, I mean, that's the thing. When we get into physics, there's a lot of stuff you can predict, especially as you, you know, the more you, and I'm not an expert of physics,
Starting point is 00:23:35 but the more you understand astronomy and atmospheres and what we know grows and lives in different conditions, you can begin to predict that there was not anything on the moon to worry about and so There were lots of scientists at NASA who were saying this is insane. We do not need to worry about Contamination from the moon right But the government is obviously involved with this as well and the last thing they want is a story about how astronauts brought back moon germs Took out took us public outrage in panic. So starting with Apollo 11 and all the way up through Apollo 14, the astronauts, when
Starting point is 00:24:13 they would return from Moon, were quarantined for three weeks in these little mobile quarantine units, these little trailers. There's actually a really great picture you can find of the astronauts looking out of this teeny little window in this quarantine trailer and they're waving at President Nixon through the window. And they would have to stay there for three weeks. There was a doctor who was put into quarantine with them
Starting point is 00:24:36 and some staff members to check them for moon germs for whatever contamination may be there from the moon. Obviously, we ended the quarantine. We don't do that anymore because we know that's not a concern, but we didn't. There's this really funny story, too, that you can read about from a lot of the NASA scientists and doctors who were involved in these early studies
Starting point is 00:24:57 have written and lectured about this extensively. And they talk about that Nixon and his presidential, you know, what am I trying to say? Entourage. All approached the quarantine unit and it automatically triggered this pressure differential to start. And if they had not stopped what was happening,
Starting point is 00:25:20 five pounds of pressure quicker or something or slower. They almost ended up with Nixon and quarantine with him. Really? He almost crossed the pressure threshold so that he would have had to be quarantined for three weeks with the astronauts. Oh my gosh, there's so many. It's very, like, like, like, five PSIs,
Starting point is 00:25:39 what they said was then having to be quarantined. There's like a lot of wonderful one at play opportunities if you can into adapt. Anything. He wasn't, obviously eventually we stopped doing that. Since then, of course, we've learned a lot more. We've gone to space many more times. And it's really interesting when you read about this, there were a lot of times where the
Starting point is 00:26:01 US and the Russian space programs were sharing information like scientists were sharing and having conferences where they would exchange information at times in history where I was very surprised that we were really which was very heartening and that I think that's a kind of a hallmark of science sometimes is despite whatever geopolitical you, strife is going on That you see scientists working together because that's their job Anyway, since since then we've done so one other interesting study that I found was back in 2011 They actually had a study called Mars 500 Obviously the next we've gone to the moon. What's next Mars Mars or bust?
Starting point is 00:26:41 So Mars 500 was a study done where six men were kept inside a small simulated spaceship for a year and a half to study like basically they went to Mars and came back. That was the idea. And they even had like a simulated Mars landing and a Mars surface and they did like they drove around on this fake Mars and did little missions and then got back in their spaceship and flew back home. Don't feel bad for them. Feel bad for the guy that had to hold up the little toy Mars in front of them for a year and a half.
Starting point is 00:27:16 There it is, boys. We're going to get there soon. Every day he had to step forward a quarter inch to solve this. Do you think it was like on a little fishing rod with a fly away? Oh, I love it. Exactly. Just hold it up in front of them. Yeah. But again, a lot of that was just to look at what happens
Starting point is 00:27:31 when we trap humans in small spaces for a long time. That's a lot of the big concern. I've been saved them several million dollars. They hate each other's guts. They hate each other's guts. They actually, they wrote letters to the outside from their regularly and journaled. And they kept, I mean, this is not journaling for their own,
Starting point is 00:27:48 like it's not just for dear diary journaling, like scientific purposes to see what their, you know, mental states were like during this and how they interacted with each other and to describe their relationships and struggles and stuff. And you can find all that. So what do you, there are a few things you need to know that from all of this space travel,
Starting point is 00:28:06 in addition to some of the things I've named, what have we learned about medically, what happens to the human body and space? Well, I don't know, tell me. So here's some, here are some interesting things. First of all, your organs get displaced. Oh no. You don't have gravity. Oh, so they're just going to be wandering around? Well, I mean, they don't wander around, but they do shift a bit. They kind of shift up a little bit. No thanks. Yeah, they just kind of,
Starting point is 00:28:29 everything kind of moves just a little bit. So from a doctor perspective, can make it a little harder to examine you because everything's not quiet. So where is it? And what's this? Well, it's not quite right. Why is that going to be?
Starting point is 00:28:42 All the fluid in your body moves up a little bit. So initially when you become weightless when you're into your gravity, your face will swell, your eyelids will swell, you'll look flushed, kind of like engorged, if you can imagine all that extra fluid up in your face. And like after not to describe it as like a fullness in their head and face very uncomfortable, I'm sure.
Starting point is 00:29:04 Your diaphragm shifts up a bit, so you can get like a fullness in their head and face is very uncomfortable, I'm sure. Your diaphragm shifts up a bit so you can get like a barrel chest appearance, but your abdomen looked pretty flat because of that. Cool, that's cool. That's nice, get those six pack abs. Your vision can change because of all that fluid moving upward in your body, it puts extra pressure on your optic nerve
Starting point is 00:29:19 and it can actually change the shape of your eyeball while you're in space, which will then change your vision a little bit. In some cases, that'll go back to normal when you're turned to earth, but not always, not always completely resolves. In addition, another problem with eyesight and spaces that stuff that we're used to having around us that just settles on dust and debris, that settles on tables and floors and whatnot is gonna float up all over the place
Starting point is 00:29:46 and can get in your eye, including things like dead skin that will float off of you instead of falling off of you. Oh, gritty, okay. And maybe little pieces of even like metal or things from equipment if you're not careful. So infections and irritation of the eye are really common. Constipation is a common problem in space.
Starting point is 00:30:05 It makes sense. Gravity helps us go. Also, motion sickness is a common problem at first, and you can imagine that vomiting is a pretty bad scene in weightlessness. Yeah, oh, no, thank you. Longer term problems, it's not good for your bones. We know we need weight bearing activity to help maintain healthy bones, strong, healthy bones. There's some, I know in the like the international space station, there's like an exercise area. Like I know they got a treadmill and stuff.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Exactly. And that is essential. They have to exercise regularly in space. That's not just to keep the pounds off. That really is to help maintain bone fitness because you can get osteoporosis, weakening, thinning of your bones and then breaks fractures of your bones as a result. And that's a little bit of that is going to happen if you're in space long enough, even if you exercise regularly.
Starting point is 00:30:51 So that's why it is so important to do that. On the flip side, your feet will get much softer because your calluses could come off. Great. So that's one good thing. So then you get that. That kind of is amazing to me. It always stuns me the amount of like, you can think about this.
Starting point is 00:31:06 This is one small facet of getting someone like to the moon or to Mars or whatever. This is one small facet and we incredibly condensed it and it still feel 30 minutes of like, and that's one little piece of this whole huge puzzle. And this is just, and let me stress, this is one little piece of the medical, I mean And this is just, and let me stress, this is one little piece of the medical, I mean, this is just a brief overview.
Starting point is 00:31:29 The intense studies and time and how many different people were working on these projects. I mean, when they talk about even designing the spacesuit, the first, like, seven astronauts that were chosen after they set up all those guidelines and did all those studies, I mean, they retailered. It actually, they talked about how one guy's suit had to continually be retailered. I don't know if he was like, much non-dereadows. But like, seriously, but like, they like to tailor each to exactly to the person and to
Starting point is 00:31:56 meet all the specifications and to try over and over again to keep people safe and healthy and there's just so many things to it. And you had to solve them all. It's amazing. 2017, I'm getting there. I'm going to do it. Just inside. I just told them how to or become a doctor. Folks, that's going to do it for us.
Starting point is 00:32:15 Thank you so much for listening to our program. We hope that you have had fun while you've been listening to it with us. We wanted to say, we haven't talked about it a long time, but we have a PO box, we're gonna send us stuff. PO box 54, Honey Taw much for January 2, 25, 706. I wanna say a huge thank you to Andy for sending us some holiday beer, best in the market.
Starting point is 00:32:39 That was one of the best beers I've ever had in my life. Thank you so much. Send us a t-shirt and a book they make called Rest in Pieces. A t-shirt I believe Sydney is wearing, right this moment. No, I am wearing. Matt sent some cereal. Mary Kate made us a plenty toy.
Starting point is 00:32:54 She's Juris Prudence on Twitter. Check out the stuff she makes. Edmundlas, sent some Christmas music. Mattie sent a lovely bunny print. Jennifer made us solbona and Taz Sense and Felix made us humor soap. So thank you to everybody who sent that stuff along.
Starting point is 00:33:13 We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you all so much. Nobody feel like you have to do that. It's just nice. But it's nice when you do it. And lots of cards and stuff, especially around Chris' time, that we got. So thank you for all those cards and letters. Reading invitations.
Starting point is 00:33:26 Thank you. Reading invitations. Sure. Thank you so much to the taxpayers for the episodes on medicines as the Intro Now Trevor program. Thank you, Maximum Fun Network. Their website MaximumFun.org is where you can find a ton of other very enjoyable podcasts. One that just moved over there is Rosebuddies.
Starting point is 00:33:45 If you like the Bachelor, then you're gonna love Rosebuddies. If you don't like the Bachelor, you will probably still love Rosebuddies. If you like Macaroise, you're gonna like Rosebuddies. And you do, because you're listening. It's my little brother Griffin, his wife Rachel, talking about the Bachelor and drinking wine. It is an excellent show.
Starting point is 00:34:02 And folks, that's gonna do it for us unless Sid, you have anything to add? No, that's it. All right, well, thank you so much for listening. Until next week, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sidney McRoy. And as always, don't jiggle a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org
Starting point is 00:34:35 Comedy and Culture, Artistone Listener Supported

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