Scott Solomon

I tend to get seasick, and I would probably get space sick.

People usually get over that in a couple of days at the most.

But then other things start to happen.

So one of the things that happens immediately is that your body fluids start to be redistributed.

So normally here on Earth, with the gravity pushing down on us, you have more fluid in your lower body than in your upper body.

But that starts to change as soon as you go into a microgravity environment.

And what the body experiences then is that it feels like there's too much fluid in your head.

And so astronauts, if you look at pictures of them, especially soon after they've gotten to space, their faces look kind of puffy.

And their legs actually look kind of skinny.

So astronauts call this space face and chicken legs.

And that's just the fluids being redistributed.

But that can actually have some long-term negative consequences.

So having excess fluid in the head actually puts more pressure on the eye.

And astronauts that have spent a long amount of time in space, like a year, they have often had vision deterioration.

And so that is thought to be linked to those fluid shifts.

So that's something that's a bit concerning.

We don't know what would happen if they're there for even longer, because again, the record is just a little over a year.

Also, long duration space flight comes with muscle atrophy.

again, not having to work against gravity.

We don't think about gravity pushing down on us and us fighting against it when we're on Earth.