Human spaceflight’s new era is fraught with medical and ethical questions
Even short trips to space have lasting effects on the average human, private missions hint
Four private individuals blasted off to the International Space Station in 2022 as part of the commercial Axiom-1 mission. As such flights become more prevalent, they bring a host of biomedical and ethics issues to the forefront.
NASA
By Adam Mann
They say that going to space changes you. Often, what’s being referenced is a shift in mindset, a renewed sense of perspective that comes from seeing our world from above, a phenomenon that’s been called the overview effect.
But it seems unlikely that rocketing off into the atmosphere, experiencing powerful g-force acceleration followed by a sudden weightlessness, then exposure to increased radiation and the utterly exotic environment of low-Earth orbit, doesn’t affect the human body in some way.
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