 You've been at it for a good three minutes. Oh my gosh, it feels like an eternity. Sending people to space isn't just about hardware and mechanics, it's also about biology. Your body changes a whole lot in microgravity, and you can be exposed to some harmful elements. So I'm headed to NASA to learn how astronauts keep their bodies healthy during missions in space. So a big part of an astronaut's day is just working out. Here on Earth, we have gravity to work against, so just standing works our bones and our muscles, but in zero gravity, you don't have that, so you risk weakening your muscles and bones. But we're here at the Countermeasures Training Facility, and your job is to stop that from happening. Well, we try to minimize it as much as possible, and the way we do that is we have them work out six out of seven days a week for two and a half hours per day. Dang, that is, that's a schedule I should be adhering to here on Earth. We all should, but. That time is spent working out for roughly an hour, lifting weights on that machine. They'll run for basically another 45 minutes to an hour, or they'll hop on the bike and exercise that way. Now I'm going to get a taste of what it's like to work out like an astronaut. You are. So I feel like I might need to change. You better go get dressed out. Okay. Now, these aren't your average machines at the gym. They're specifically designed for microgravity. If we took a weight set up to the station, it wouldn't weigh anything. It'd just be mass floating around getting in the way, so we use basically differential pressure. You have two evacuated cylinders that you can see up there. Inside each cylinder is a piston, so that would be sort of synonymous with a syringe. If you were to close the top of a syringe, it creates a vacuum that's hard to pull against. The canisters do basically the same thing, creating a simulated weight that astronauts can lift in space. So you're pulling against that force. Yes. Yes. Gotcha. So you have the weight. And then I can go. You're going to squat down. There you go. I've been traveling, so I haven't been working out in a while, so please bear with me. Very good. Step forward. Keep bringing your shoulders and chest forward. Look for the orange. Does it feel different when it's on the station because we are in a gravity environment? The load will feel the same. However, the machine will move with you. Give me a break here. Weightlifting really isn't my thing, so we moved on to something that's more my beat. Cardio. Now, the trick about running on a treadmill in space is that you actually have to be connected to the treadmill and loaded down to the treadmill surface. Right. Or else you'd just float away and you wouldn't be running very long. Right. So what we have is a harness. How do I look? The next step is to get you on this treadmill and connected to what we call bungees. These are three big pieces of surgical tubing. And we're going to connect you at the hip. It's definitely a bit odd to run while attached at the hip. Your body wants to move fast, but you feel weighed down. I feel like my body is trying to be torn in two. Okay. In space, of course, it's the only way to stay on the treadmill and actually get a workout. Here's a good question. Yeah. Where does the sweat go? The sweat, yeah. Does it float off and annoy the other astronauts? At first, it'll just stick to your face in big balls, big globs of sweat. Okay. And then it'll just tend to. Eventually, that ball of sweat will grow and get larger. And if you did that, it's just going to fly and then it's going to get captured by the ventilation system. Oh, okay. Well, it'll get recycled and it's tomorrow's coffee. Wonderful. I definitely got a workout in by testing another mode on the treadmill and even a bike. They like to give the astronauts options as working out is a consistent part of their daily routine. But it's not just bones and muscles that change in space. Astronauts also experience vision disorders, cardiovascular issues, and balance problems. And then there are health hazards linked with just being outside the safety of Earth's atmosphere, like space radiation. Radiation is concerning because it can pierce through materials, including skin, and cause damage. There are a few different sources of space radiation. You've got energetic particles that are periodically ejected from the sun. And then you have deep space cosmic rays from exploding stars outside our solar system. Here on Earth, we're protected from a good chunk of space radiation thanks to our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere. These two things act like barriers around Earth, deflecting a lot of particles that head our way. Astronauts live outside most of our protective atmosphere, though, so they get more exposure on the job. And if they were to go deeper into space, their exposure would be even higher. NASA has a radiation laboratory set up in New York. The scientists use a particle accelerator to study the effects of space radiation on DNA and cells. Instead of bringing the samples up to the radiation, we bring the radiation down to the samples. You take ions and you accelerate them around in a ring faster and faster until the electrons start to strip off. So you're left with a residual positive charge. And those are the type of ions that are present in the space radiation environment. You can generate them on the ground. So the beam actually comes from up this tunnel over here along the rails in there that you might be able to see. And then this essentially becomes a target area where samples can be brought in and placed on the beam line so that they can be exposed in a sequential, systematic kind of a fashion. Scientists are then able to test how different levels of radiation may affect astronauts. They are monitored carefully to assess what level of radiation they've exposed in their life. It's nothing different than say a nuclear plant worker or a coal miner or something who is encountering some radioactive material. Just another blue collar job, no problem. Astronauts have dosimeters like we actually have here at the particle accelerator that will measure approximately what dose your body has received. That's important because too much radiation can have some nasty effects. There are three main areas that are of concern to human beings in space travel. One of them is effects on the central nervous system. Another major one is effects on other organs as a whole. And the third major area of interest, which is probably the primary one, is cancer. Mitigating these effects of radiation is a top priority for NASA. And one tool they're using to reduce damage is spacecraft shielding. Different materials like aluminum and specialized plastics can block from one quarter to one third of radiation in space. If you can use a more effective type of shielding material, at least reduce the amount that the person would absorb, enough of it is blocked such that it doesn't really produce any kind of significant biological effect. Completely preventing exposure is probably not going to happen. But with more research, better shielding can be developed that may make trips into deep space possible. Until then, I'll keep working on my fitness, just in case, you know, NASA wants to send me to orbit. And it's the three mile an hour walk more, so you can just kind of relax. I mean, relax is a relative term here. Shielding has never been so difficult before.