© NASA
About one-third of the U.S. space station crewmembers return with impaired vision, a condition in which at least one case was permanent.
About one-third of the U.S. space station crewmembers return with impaired vision, a condition in which at least one case was permanent.
The data has been slow in coming since astronauts can be disqualified from flying if they have serious ailments.
"These are guys who really don't like to complain about physical issues because it may ground them. They're desire is to get back into space, so they are not complainers," neurosurgeon Bruce Ehni at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Discovery News.
But in 2005, one unnamed astronaut came forward to reveal his affliction, prompting a survey of the corps. NASA discovered 35 percent of its former space station crew members, who typically spend about six months in orbit, experience visual acuity issues, agency spokesman Mike Curie told Discovery News.
Comment: In this study researchers aren't considering the obvious: that their assumptions about the formation of the solar system are wrong to start with. Instead of all the planets forming in their current orbits as the solar system 'cooled', it could be that the rocky planets and numerous moons were acquired rather than created as a process of solar system formation. The ideas put forth by James McCanney discuss this possibility of planetary capture. One of the main blind spots that keep astronomers from accepting the possibility of planetary capture is the understanding of electrical forces in space. With 'gravity only' models, the numbers only show a low probability of this happening.
However, it is interesting to note here that some researchers are considering the possibility that there might be more than meets the eye when it comes to the solar system. Could there be another Jovian-size planet or brown-dwarf star out there that we're not seeing?