Will beat many records and may pave the way for long flights to Mars: it is the mission twins space, the first lasting one year organized by NASA, whose launch is scheduled today at 20:42 Italian
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L ‘ American astronaut Scott Kelly will remain in space 12 months, during which his vital signs will be monitored continuously and compared with those of the twin Mark, who is also an astronaut, that remains to Earth. The launch of the Soyuz, carrying Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko, is scheduled from the Russian base in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. After the launch at 20:42, in six hours the astronauts arrive at the space station, where they expect Samantha Cristoforetti, the European Space Agency (ESA), with the commander Terry Virts and Russian Anton Schkaplerov. A stay in space for a year will be Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, both flight engineers. The goal is to study how the body reacts to long periods in the absence of gravity.
The results will allow to know the human limitations and reduce health risks in view of future missions on Mars. But these studies are also useful on Earth, to find new weapons against muscle diseases and bone. The long exposure to a zero-gravity environment can affect fact the human body in several ways: by loss of muscle and bone mass (osteoporosis) the weakening of the immune system. The mission also want to check the psychological effects of living in isolated and confined spaces. There is nothing better, for studies of this type, the comparison between the parameters of who is flying with those of an identical twin, or an individual with the same genetic makeup, remained to Earth.
The experiment also recalls the famous twin paradox created by Einstein to explain the effects of relativity, where a twin on a trip on a spaceship to speeds approaching that of light, and on his return has grown much less twin ‘terrestrial. In any case the astronauts ready to go tomorrow will beat many records: Kelly will be the American to have spent more time in space, for a total of 522 days; Padalka, who is also a veteran of the old Russian space station Mir, will become the astronaut who will have spent more days (though not consecutive) away from Earth (the 710 days already totalized will add six months).
Friday, March 27, 2015, 16:30 – Last Updated: 17:31
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