As if running on a treadmill isnāt difficult enough already, NASA is asking volunteers to do it sideways, while suspended horizontally from a truss ā all in the name of science, of course.
The weightlessness of space is hard on the body. Astronauts lose both muscle tone and bone mass, which can impair their ability to work ā and can take years, in the case of the bone loss, to recover.
To keep strong, crew members on the International Space Station exercise for about two hours a day, using a treadmill, a stationary bicycle and a device that simulates weight training.
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But āastronauts work on very tight schedulesā, say Linda Loerch and Jeff Ryder of the Exercise Countermeasures Project at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, US. So they and colleagues at NASAās Glenn Research Center and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, both in Cleveland, Ohio, US, are hoping to streamline the regime to āgenerate the greatest health benefits while requiring the least amount of crew time and vehicle resourcesā.
To that end, the agency will be testing the latest version of its vertical treadmill, which is based on a similar device first developed at Russiaās Institute of Biomedical Problems, on .
By changing how strongly runnersā feet are pulled towards the treadmill, called the Standalone Zero Gravity Locomotion Simulator, researchers can simulate microgravity conditions on the space station as well as the Moonās gravity, which is one-sixth as strong as Earthās.
āWe envision that by optimising the treadmill exercise duration, frequency of use and [pull towards the treadmill] in bed rest subjects . . . we will then save time in optimising exercise protocols for astronauts on the International Space Station and eventually those exploring the Moon and Mars,ā the researchers told New ŠÓ°ÉŌ““.
They say the vertical treadmill is a more practical way of simulating prolonged weightlessness than testing treadmills on planes that make roller-coaster-like āparabolicā flights. Such flights produce only 30 seconds or so of weightlessness at a time.
