Why the Human Body Isn’t Ready to go to Mars…Yet

[Dr. Alleyne] We are going to Mars one day

And we know that even if the technology is ready,

We will be a no-go for launch because the human body

And the human systems are not ready.

We have Scott Kelly and his Russian counterpart

Mikhail Kornienko who have been onboard the space station

For almost a year, they are getting ready

To come back on March 1st.

A one-way trip to Mars is at least six to eight months

So it's really important for us to understand

How the human body adapts beyond six months.

For Scott and Mikhail, they have become subjects

For us to test what happens to the human body

Eight to twelve months while it's in space.

Astronauts will come back and they weigh much less

Than when they went up, so we know

That with the muscle atrophy and the bone density loss,

They are losing 1.5% of bone

A month which is equivalent

To what a postmenopausal woman loses in a year.

We've found that exercising everyday:

Doing high-resistive exercise, proper nutrition,

And some vitamin D supplements actually reverse

The effects of bone density so there's a lot

we can learn so that we are successful in sending humans

On a journey to Mars one day.

We found very recently their vision decreases

As a result of fluid shifting towards the head

In a nongravitational environment

And then that swells some of the optic nerves

Causing a decrease in vision

And so it's really important

To understand what is some of the things we can do

To counteract that: there's an investigation now

That Scott and his counterpart Mikhail is going through

Called Fluid Shifts and that is using

A pants we call the Chibis which sucks the fluid

Back down towards the legs

And we are hoping to find

That would counteract some of the vision impairment losses

That they are seeing, they are subjected to radiation.

Of course the space station is not always shielded

From radiation so there are some radiation exposure effects,

Their heart shrinks as a result of not being able

To have the heart pump blood towards the feet

Because they're not walking, they're floating

And so Scott and Mikhail during this one-year mission

Is really our first adventure

In finding out what happens

And how we can counteract the human adaptations

For a long journey to Mars.

(futuristic synth music)