• Question: what happens to our body muscles in space?

    Asked by eshanip1017 to Alan, Francesca, Nick on 20 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Alan Fitzsimmons

      Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      If astronauts don’t exercise, their muscles get smaller and thinner. That’s because on the ground many of our muscles are working all the time against the force of gravity, which keeps them strong. In space an astronaut is weightless, so the muscles don’t do any work.

      This is always a problem for astronauts when they return from living on the space station for 6 months. Even through they exercise, they get tired even standing up for the first few days back on Earth, until they get used to gravity again!

    • Photo: Francesca Day

      Francesca Day answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      Good question – this is a big problem for astronauts! On Earth, our muscles have to work against gravity when we walk or move around, so they get a bit of exercise almost all the time. In space, there is no gravity, so the astronaut’s muscles don’t get this kind of exercise, and they get very weak! To try to prevent this, astronauts have to exercise lots when they’re in space!

    • Photo: Nick Wright

      Nick Wright answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      Great question, and a really important question that scientist are still trying to understand. Because there is less gravity in space astronauts don’t have to work as hard to do things (like walking around or standing up). Because of this the bones and muscles of astronauts who spend long periods of time in space can become weaker, especially when those astronauts return to Earth and have to deal with Earth’s gravity again.

      One of the ways that astronauts try to overcome this problem in space is to do lots of exercise, but that isn’t always easy, and so scientists are still trying to find solutions to this problem so that astronauts can safely spend much longer periods of time (many years) in space. Would you like to go into space one day?

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