In 4 months, Canadian Jeremy Hansen will blast off to the moon — the place he’ll even be a human guinea pig

If all goes to plan, subsequent February might see the return of people to the moon. Four folks — NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — will see  it as nobody has earlier than. Not even the Apollo astronauts, as a lot of it was darkish throughout their missions.

Artemis II is a mission to ship the 4 across the moon, taking them farther than any human has ever been. Their purpose is to assist put together for Artemis III, which is able to see boots on the moon for the primary time since 1972.

While they’re tasked with testing out the spacecraft’s many techniques and skills, the 4 are additionally very a lot human guinea pigs in house.

During the Apollo missions of the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, NASA collected rock samples from the moon and carried out experiments on its floor, however one factor it did not do is be taught extra about how the human physique reacts to deep house. 

Artemis is trying to vary that.

“Our top priority is to bring our friends safely home,” stated Jacob Bleacher, NASA chief exploration scientist, at a press convention final week. 

“To do that, we have developed an integrated research campaign that will support all of our future Artemis missions to make sure that we can travel safely in space and bring everybody home. And that really starts with trying to understand the space environment.”

Human our bodies weren’t meant for house journey. We have advanced to stay on Earth, protected by our magnetosphere towards dangerous radiation and cosmic rays and extra. But if we’re going to enterprise out into house and look to stay on the moon or Mars, we have to understand how we will higher shield ourselves.

AVATAR (no, not the film)

Just a few of the experiments have already begun.

ARCHeR, or Artemis Research for Crew Health & Readiness, is considered one of them. 

In this experiment, astronauts put on a watch-like machine that screens their sleep, stress and cognition forward of the launch, through the mission and as soon as they return.

“We are the biggest experiment flying, the individual,” Hansen informed CBC News. “We’re spending quite a bit of time now collecting data on our bodies…. But a lot of the science is sort of being done behind the scenes for us. We are the experiment.”

The findings will assist plan for future missions and crew assist. 

Then there’s AVATAR, or A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response (NASA loves its acronyms).

NASA needs to grasp how deep house impacts the human our bodies, particularly excessive radiation and microgravity, nevertheless it’s tough to poke and prod astronauts in a small atmosphere. Instead, they’ve developed AVATAR, which acts, effectively, like an avatar for these people. 

Blood cells had been collected right here on for all 4 astronauts, then placed on a chip roughly the dimensions of a USB thumb drive. The assortment acts as a stand-in for his or her bone marrow, which performs a significant position in our immune techniques. It’s additionally delicate to radiation.

“Once we understand what’s happening in deep space, especially in the radiation environment — I have a radiation background — so it’s really important to me and to the agency in understanding how we can protect our astronauts so that we can send them out on these deep space exploration exploration missions and make sure that they return healthy,” Lisa Carnell, director of NASA’s organic and bodily sciences division, informed CBC News.

Being armed with this data, Carnell stated, might assist present private countermeasures to guard future astronauts happening deep-space missions. But she additionally famous that they may use this data for related countermeasures right here on Earth.

Lick right here, please

We could not assume a lot about our saliva, nevertheless it’s “basically a window into how our immune system is functioning,” Bleacher stated.

The Artemis II astronauts have already supplied NASA with samples, however as soon as they’re in house, they may accumulate “dry” saliva samples, that means they’re going to lick particular paper in pocket-sized booklets that may return to Earth for additional research. 

The objective? To analyze how the astronauts’ immune techniques, together with hormones, viruses and cells reply to issues like radiation and isolation. They will even see whether or not or not dormant viruses are reactivated in deep house. In 2024, a study was released on an astronaut on the International Space Station who had the herpes zoster virus that causes shingles.

“This research provides insight into how a person’s immune system will be affected during these deep space missions that will be flying in the future,” Bleacher stated.

While it will not be as glamorous as strolling on the moon, just like the Artemis III mission might be, Artemis II is laying the groundwork to long-term human presence in house, even when it takes many years. 

“When I look at the future, when we talk about what is our legacy, I don’t want to look five years or 10 years in the future. I want to look 100 or 200 years in the future. And honestly, this is where I thought this might land wrong: I hope we’re forgotten,” Wiseman stated at a NASA press convention final week.

“If we are forgotten, then Artemis has been successful. We have humans on Mars. We have humans out on the moons of Saturn. We are expanding in the solar system.

“And possibly that is our footnote: We impressed Susie or Johnny to do what they did. That can be magical.”