JAKARTA, iNews.id – Become astronaut requires perfect vision. Unfortunately, space effects can cause astronauts to return to Earth with reduced vision.
Now, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have developed a sleeping bag that could prevent or reduce the problem. The sleeping bag effectively sucks fluid from the astronaut’s head.
More than half NASA astronaut who went to the International Space Station (ISS) for more than six months experienced varying degrees of vision problems. In one case, astronaut John Philips returned from a six-month stint on the ISS in 2005 with his eyesight reduced from 20/20 to 20/100, the BBC reports.
For multi-year trips to Mars, for example, this could be a problem. According to lead researcher Dr. Benjamin Levine this would be a disaster if the astronauts were so badly disturbed that they couldn’t see what they were doing and disrupted the mission.
Fluid tends to build up in your head while you sleep. However, gravity pulls it back into your body when you wake up. However, in a low-gravity space, more than half a gallon of fluid collects in the head.
This in turn puts pressure on the eyeball, causing flattening that can lead to impaired vision, a disorder called spaceflight-related neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS.
Editor: Dini Listiyani
