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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 12, 1962)
Effects of Weightlessness Could Impede Moon Travel By JOSEPH L. MYLER Unitad Pr.ii International Washington -OTP- Man may not go to the moon and plan ets after all. A fact sometimes forgotten in public preoccupation with bigger and better rockets and spacecraft is that no one yet knows whether men can en dure prolonged weightless ness. Off hand, it might seem strange if he could. All life on earth has evolved in the past two billion years or so under the continuous influ ence of gravity. Is it reasonable to expect the digestive, circ u 1 a t o r y, muscular, skeletal, emotional and mental equipment of a creature so evolved to oper ate as usual without the fa miliar gravitational tug? Some biologists and psy chologists doubt it. It has been suggested, for example, that kidney stones may be come an occupational malady of space travelers. Under weightlessness, pre sumably, a skeleton created to resist gravity won't need as much stiffening calcium as before. And excess calcium can wind up in the human system as kidney stones, a cause of pain as excruciating, perhaps, as gout or severe bursitis. This is but one of the pos sible effects of weightlessness on astronauts who may spend a long time in that state. As someone once said, man has always been a "one-G ani mal." One G is the force ex erted by the earth's gravita tional pull. It is what gives you weight. Weight Multiplied Their accelerating rockets subjected astronauts John H. Glenn Jr. and Malcolm Scott Carpenter to forces about 7V4 times gravity. That means their weight was muitipled 7'i times. Then as powered flight end ed and they went into orbit -falling around the earth at constant speed - they abrupt ly plunged into the eerie, skin-prickling space dimen sion of Zero-G, or weightless ness. It was a novel sensation, one of inexpressible release, and for the iVi hours they experienced it, Glenn and Carpenter enjoyed the feel ing of weightlessness. But Soviet cosmonaut Gher man S. Titov, who was weight less for a day, suffered from nausea after about six hours of Zero-G. It will take 2'i days to go to the moon and as long to return. A roundtrip to Mars may take a year. No one knows whether human be ings, astronauts or cosmo nauts, will be able to stand weightlessness that long. But by the time man's ma chines are capable of taking him to the moon, many of the mysteries of weightlessness should be solved. U.S. plans call for orbital bouts with zero-G lasting two weeks or longer before an attempt is made to plant men on the moon. It may be that man, who has adjusted from life as a tropical animal to life in the Arctic and Antarctic, will be able to adjust to weightless ness, too. Questions Aiked But this is by no means certain. Here are some of the questions scientists are ask ing: Can the heart function properly without the help of gravity? Is gravity vital to the movement of food through the digestive apparatus? j Would weightlessness fpeed up the multiplication of body cells or affect their growth and function? Would long periods of zero G be like long confinement in bed, tending to cause mus cle atrophy and we ncss? Is it likely, as has been suggested, that the penolog ical effects of weightlessness may prove to be intolerable? Speculation about the pos- Missionary Program Begun By Countries Nashville, Tenn. - (UPD - A missionary - in - reverse pro gram will be conducted by the Methodist church in the fall when leading Christians from other countries will participate in a "mission to America." The leaders will be avail able for missions lasting six to eight days in churches that Invite them. The missionaries will come from Africa. Asia, Latin America and Europe between Sept. 7 and Dec. 16. ibly bad effects of weight lessness has stimulated specu lation about possible ways of relieving them. Physical exercise in the limited quarters of the space craft, intermittent aDDlication of tourniquets to give the cir culatory system something to work against, and drugs to combat nausea and disorien tation have been suggested. Dr. Terence A. Rogers, Stanford university physiolo gist, has given considerable thought to the psycho-somatic consequences of weightlessness. 'If they prove lo be intol erable," he said in a "Scien tific American" article, the vehicle could be accelerated at a fraction of a G to about the halfway point and then decelerated for the remainder of the voyage. "Alternatively, sluw rota tion of the vehicle would ap ply a small ce:itriius:il effect. Either of these maneuvers MEDFORDtJTMBUNE SECTION B MEDFORD, OREGON. THURSDAY. JULY 12, 1962 PAGES 1 to 8 would give rise to a slight but comforting sensation of weight for the crew." Would any of these sugges tions really work? 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