72
votes
Accepted
Would all crew leave the ISS if one had a medical emergency?
All of the crewmembers assigned to the sick crewmember's crew transport vehicle (which as of this writing means the Soyuz) would have to leave as well. Otherwise they would be left without a means of ...
- 189k
57
votes
Accepted
Are all modern astronauts at least passable phlebotomists?
By my count, the OP asks three questions. I'll anecdotally answer two of them ("Is it something that most or all astronauts are capable of doing, or are there just a few "designated drivers&...
- 4,245
25
votes
Which astronauts or cosmonauts were injured by a hard landing?
Apollo 12, Alan Bean. The capsule hit a rising wave, and the impact force knocked a camera out of a bracket, which hit Bean in the head and briefly knocked him out. He suffered a mild concussion and ...
- 172k
23
votes
Which astronauts or cosmonauts were injured by a hard landing?
Boris Volynov broken several teeth during hard landing of the Soyuz-5 mission.
- 9,121
22
votes
Would a higher air pressure on the ISS or elsewhere make it easier to "swim" in microgravity?
Would a higher air pressure on the ISS or elsewhere make it easier to “swim” in microgravity?
Yes!
But what's really important is the density, so instead of pressuring "normal air" you can ...
- 151k
18
votes
Accepted
Do space suits measure "methane" levels or other biological gases?
The US's only "modern, real" space suit, the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), was designed in the 1970s. It has a very limited sensor suite and no automation at all.
The only sensors used in the ...
- 189k
17
votes
Which astronauts or cosmonauts were injured by a hard landing?
American cosmonaut Donald Pettit injured his shoulder when the Soyuz TMA-1 had to fall back to a ballistic reentry following a capsule malfunction. The hard landing was further complicated by the ...
17
votes
Accepted
What is Earth's apparent magnitude from geosynchronous orbit?
Interesting question!
tl;dr mag -22 maximum, no particular danger except UV because it's still quite a large extended source (not concentrated to a point).
Easy part first:
Surface brightness for ...
- 151k
14
votes
Would a higher air pressure on the ISS or elsewhere make it easier to "swim" in microgravity?
Partial answer to "Is it a proposal space agencies should consider?"
Unlikely. Increasing the differential pressure by a factor of 5 would mean that the modules would have to be quite a bit ...
- 189k
14
votes
Which astronauts or cosmonauts were injured by a hard landing?
The female South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon may have been injured in Soyuz TMA-11 on April 19, 2008.
Yi So-yeon was hospitalized after her return to South Korea due to
injuries caused by the rough ...
- 49.5k
13
votes
Which astronauts or cosmonauts were injured by a hard landing?
During the abort of Soyuz 7K-T No.39 launch, Vasily Lazarev was injured by very high g-loads ( up to 21.3 g, 15 g were expected) and was never able to fly to space again. It was April 5, 1975.
- 49.5k
12
votes
Accepted
Can the vacuum of space be used to sterilize equipment?
Can the vacuum of space be used to sterilize equipment?
Supposing that washing dishes and sterilizing medical equipment could be expensive to do in space, would a viable option be to expose dishes, ...
- 3,282
11
votes
Accepted
Can centrifugal force actually overcome the health problems of microgravity?
First, I want to get out of the way that the equivalence principle, which is well supported by experiment, contends that gravity and acceleration are one in the same: "pseudo"-gravity caused by ...
- 2,035
11
votes
Accepted
Was this Gemini "giant eye chart" ever performed?
Yes, it was performed during Gemini 5 and 7. Here's the report.
... Ground observation sites were provided on the Gates Ranch, 40 miles north of Laredo, Texas, and on the Woodleigh Ranch, 90 miles ...
- 12.3k
10
votes
Does NASA police urine production by astronauts?
For shuttle:
There was no enforcement of and no policy existed regarding urine production per crewmember.
Even if such a policy had been desirable, there was no way to monitor per-crewmember urine ...
- 189k
9
votes
Maximum survivable atmospheric pressure
The maximum pressure for long term survival in an atmosphere of 79 % nitrogen and 21 % oxygen is limited by oxygen toxicity. The limit of the partial pressure of oxygen is about 0.5 bar, the maximum ...
- 49.5k
9
votes
Accepted
How do astronauts get eye drops into their eyes?
Surface tension!
The short answer is you’re close with your first guess - by squeezing the bottle a drop forms at the tip that is stable due to surface tension, and then steering that drop into an ...
- 421
9
votes
Accepted
Can there be color blind astronauts?
Yes, there has been at least one color blind astronaut. Astronaut pilots cannot be color blind, but some color blindness is permitted with mission specialists.
Roger Crouch is one such example, he ...
- 20.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Has an IV even been performed or attempted in space?
The first IV in space was performed on Space Shuttle Mission STS-55 in 1993.
Harris, a medical doctor, set up first I.V. (intravenous) line in
space, injecting Schlegel with saline as part of study ...
- 189k
8
votes
Accepted
Did astronaut candidates have a lung capacity test, as portrayed in the movie The Right Stuff?
This article on health concerns for space tourists includes a photo of Wally Schirra performing the lung capacity test:
.
He appears to be blowing into a tube but it's unclear if there's a ball ...
- 172k
8
votes
What effects did the different air pressure and air composition in certain spacecraft have on astronauts?
The partial pressure of oxygen (ppO2) should be higher than about 0.16 bar and lower than about 0.4 to 0.5 bar for longer exposition of some days up to a week.
So breathing pure oxygen for a week is ...
- 49.5k
8
votes
Accepted
What effects would the longer days on Mars have on humans?
The short answer is: probably nothing significant.
There have been multiple investigations into human circadian rhythms and their variations, especially in the absence of external clues regarding ...
- 18.4k
7
votes
Can there be color blind astronauts?
No. I can't find a NASA source, but I can find one from the Canadian Space Agency, whose astronauts have to ride on NASA missions and therefore would meet the same requirements. It specifically ...
- 6,300
6
votes
How well would a broken bone heal in zero gravity?
Bone tissue does "not know how to grow" unless it is loaded during healing. Fracture healing would likely be delayed or abnormal in microgravity.
Bones are piezoelectric. This means they ...
- 27.9k
6
votes
Is the vestibular system ever useful in spaceflight?
During the first 3-4 days of spaceflight the vestibular system is essentially useless as the brain becomes confused by sensations in the inner ear that do not match what is seen with the eyes. For ...
- 5,914
6
votes
Accepted
What biomedical data indicated Apollo astronauts were sleeping?
Here’s a detailed description of the biomedical instrumentation system:
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-368/s6ch3.htm
This included heart and respiration monitors. Presumably, sleeping was inferred from ...
- 172k
6
votes
What would happen to an astronaut on the surface of Mars if a Carrington-event-like superflare hit the red planet?
There is a detailed review of space weather effects on humans in space by Townsend [2021]. They highlight several solar energetic particle (SEP) events that would have exceeded 30 day short-term ...
- 2,144
5
votes
Is the vestibular system ever useful in spaceflight?
Answer: The vestibular system is useful in spaceflight for maintaining visual fixation. Without a vestibular system, vision would be degraded when the head is moving in relation to the object of ...
- 27.9k
5
votes
Accepted
Rabbits in Space
Public information on rabbits in space is surprisingly sparse. The earliest instance I have been able to find is the July 2, 1959 launch of the Soviet R-2, which reportedly carried the first rabbit ...
- 23.8k
5
votes
Can the vacuum of space be used to sterilize equipment?
There's an interesting article on phys.org, today, about the BIOMEX experiment on the ISS.
The tests involved samples of different organisms such as bacteria,
algae, lichens and fungi being ...
- 3,233
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible