A brief exchange in the back of last week’s issue of New Scientist asks: "I understand that the lines and sagging skin we acquire as we age are due to the sun and gravity. If I lived in a space station in zero or microgravity away from the sun, would I stay looking young?" A perfectly innocuous, if even somewhat boring, question—but the answer, supplied by a reader from London, touches on some fascinating terrain.
We now know which two astronauts will have to pack their bags very, very well in the next three years: NASA’s Scott Kelly and Roscosmos’ Mikhail Kornienko have been picked for the year-long stay aboard the International Space Station in 2015. Both voyagers are old hands at space travel, having each spent a total of six months in orbit and at least some time on the ISS crew. There’s no great shock in the choices when the mission will track the long-term effects of near-zero gravity on the human body — after all, most of us would want a crew comfortable in its spacesuit boots for such an ambitious (though not record-setting) trip. Kelly and Kornienko will start a two-year training program shortly into 2013 that should have them in shape by the expedition’s launch… and hopefully remind them to bring a good toothbrush.
Continue reading NASA, Roscosmos pick seasoned astronauts for year-long ISS trip
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