When I was a kid and I would think about becoming an astronaut I always wondered what it would feel like to be wieghtless and floating around. I would day dream about being out in space looking back down at Earth, then turning and gazing upon our beautiful moon. I never thought about how it might affect me physically. Sure I thought that it might feel weird, but I never thought about long term effects that it has on the human body. So is it really worth it for the astronauts to sacrifice their health in order to advance our knowledge on space travel?

First of all I will go over some of the effects that being in space has on the astronauts that are up there has. RIDGE. RIDGE is an acronym for effect of space travel on the person. Today I will only go over the first to points in RIDGE, or I guess now RI. The R stands for Radiation. On Earth we are protected from solar radiation through our magnetic field, but in space youre vulnerable to many types of radiation. The I in RIDGE is isolation. You might think that being by yourself for a couple days might be a little scary, especially being home alone, but in space astronauts are asked to be by themselves for sometimes months on end. Recently some astronauts were stranded on the ISS, and though they had eachother, it still can affect not only their minds, but their bodies. Being isolated in 0 gravity affects your bone strength, and astronauts have to constantly be working out.

Of course these issues are not new. NASA has been studying and trying to find cures and ways to fix these issues. Accordinng to, “The Human Body in Space” it says that NASA is closely monitoring space radiation that is going onto the astronauts. They are using new radiation monitors that every one who ventures to space has to wear. And when these people come back to Earth they have many test ran on them to study the radiation. For isolation NASA has been studying humans in confined environments for years. NASA is also looking into virtual reality treatments to give astronauts a pleasing and relaxing enviorment to go into especially when been isolated for a long time.

Due to all of the benefits that we get from space travel (which if you don’t know go check out my other blogs) and all of the reasreach that NASA is doing and has been doing, I believe that it is justified for us to continue to send astronauts into outer space. From NASA monitoring the radiation, and the countless studies of people in isolation, space travel will only become safer as time goes by.

I dedicate this blog to Chris Cornell. Thank you for your amazing voice, it’s sad that you’re gone.