The objective is to test different means of limiting the effects of the absence of gravity, in order to prepare for future long-duration manned space flights.
Lying for two months around the clock with your head slightly down at six degrees is the challenge of a dozen volunteers at the Toulouse Space Clinic. All are in very good health, rather athletic and under 45 years old. This experiment 88 days, including 60 days in bed, carried out with the Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology (IMPS-Medes), makes it possible to test the different ways of limiting the negative effects of the absence of gravity on the body.
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The first challenge: to eat while remaining in this position. “You should eat lying on your side, in generalexplains Jean-Christophe, one of the volunteers. One shoulder must necessarily touch the mattress, so it’s a gymnastic not to put it everywhere.“And he also has to stay alert when drinking.”The good idea is to drink with a straw“, continues Jean-Christophe.
There is also no question of getting up to relieve oneself. The volunteers therefore had to adopt certain rather special habits. “We put ourselves on a stretcher-shower and we do our needs in a basin“, says Geoffrey, who claims to have gotten used to this system after a few days.
Lying down, but very active
Visits and outings are of course prohibited, but the volunteers, bedridden since April 4, have the right to communicate via social networks and have spent their afternoons watching Roland-Garros. But lying down does not mean being inactive. During the exercise session, half of them ride a recumbent bike for half an hour. And the volunteers push their limits, with different levels of difficulty, going up to 80% of their maximum speed.
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Jean-Christophe is lying on his bike, but placed in a centrifuge that spins faster and faster. A tough exercise for the volunteer, who is panting under the watchful eye of Ron, one of the doctors at the Toulouse Space Clinic. “In microgravity, everything that is liquid tends to flow back to the top of the bodyexplains the scientist. The purpose of the centrifuge is to attenuate this vascular call to the top of the body by driving the flow a little further down.”
An experiment commissioned by the European Space Agency
In a few months, experiments will establish whether or not the centrifuge can extend the duration of space travel. This mission was entrusted by the European Space Agency (ESA) to the Space Clinic to anticipate trips to Mars. We must therefore adapt, insists the director, Marie-Pierre Bareille: “At the moment, the missions are for six months. But when we talk about Mars, these are missions that will last much longer. Communications will be very slow.”
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The crews will also be much more isolated, hence the importance, according to Marie-Pierre Bareille, of preparing them well and finding ways to keep them in good health. The experience will precisely be renewed with twelve other volunteers from the fall.