Past research has indicated that 10 percent of all astronauts who died between 1959-1991 had cardiovascular problems, 5 percent had cancer, 80 percent died in accidents, and 5 percent died of other causes.
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A new study shows that astronauts from the Apollo missions have a rate of cardiovascular disease mortality almost five times that of other astronauts, suggesting that even short missions outside Earth’s protective geomagnetic field have long-term health consequences.
Apollo astronauts who ventured to the moon are at five times greater risk of dying from heart disease than shuttle astronauts, United States researchers said on Thursday, citing the dangers of cosmic radiation beyond the Earth’s magnetic field.
New research from Florida State University shows the Apollo mission-era astronauts are experiencing high rates of cardiovascular problems, many of which have been deadly. This is in line with a 2014 paper that declared space radiation the number one risk to astronaut health beyond the low-earth orbit.
The Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s exposed crews to levels of radiation which heightened their risk of fatal heart disease, a study suggests. Only Irwin, Evans and Armstrong died from heart disease.
Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin salutes the USA flag during his final moonwalk.
That brought the Apollo astronauts’ rate of death from cardiovascular disease nearly even with the general US population. But astronauts are a different group from the general population. Past studies drew on the general U.S. population, especially people who lived near Johnson Space Center or worked there.
The study looked at the causes of death among seven Apollo astronauts versus those of 35 LEO astronauts and those of 35 astronauts who had not actually flown in space.
Granted, it’s a tiny sample size.
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, the first men to land on the moon, plant the USA flag on the lunar surface, July 20, 1969. Although the Apollo spacecraft offered some radiation shielding, they couldn’t completely protect the astronauts. “It’s a problem in all of space studies”, he told Gizmodo. Again, that’s just three of seven people, which doesn’t give you a whole lot of statistical power.
Delp felt it was important to publish the data nonetheless, because the ISS will be decommissioned in 2024, and several countries (including the US) are preparing for future manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars.
“We know very little about the effects of deep space radiation on human health, particularly on the cardiovascular system”. We found that the weightlessness simulation group produced an impairment of the blood vessels (via the endothelium) of the type that could predispose the arteries to the development of atherosclerotic plaque, also that the radiation produces a similar sort of impairment to the vascular endothelium, and finally that the combination of simulated weightlessness and space radiation produced and even greater impairment than either treatment alone. “The major environmental factor that would appear to underlie this phenomenon is deep space radiation”.
When they retested the mice six to seven months later, the equivalent of 20 human years, the radiation-exposed mice still had cardiovascular defects. One group of mice spent two weeks suspended to simulate the effects of weightlessness on their forelegs, while another group got a heavy dose of 56-Fe radiation.
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Astronauts on “low Earth orbit” missions, which do not travel beyond the Earth’s protective magnetosphere, are not exposed to this radiation, according to the study, published today (July 28) in the journal Scientific Reports. They are screened for health problems, subjected to grueling physical training, and stringently scrutinized by a cadre of doctors throughout their careers – all factors that make them less likely to die from ailments that plague the general population, like cardiovascular disease.
