Keeping Fit

treadmill

Cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev exercising on the treadmill
  
The comprehensive exercise program used during Skylab missions was effective in preventing weight loss, maintaining leg strength and leg volume, and maintaining the integrity of muscle systems in general. However, in-flight exercise by no means offers complete protection. Cosmonauts Berezovoi and Lebedev returned from a 211-day flight aboard Salyut 7 in a very debilitated condition. Although they had exercised daily, their muscles were so flabby that, for a week, they were barely able to walk; and for several weeks afterwards they required intensive rehabilitation. Crews will need to exercise at least 2 hours or more each day on long-duration flights to stay healthy! Some of the exercise they will do includes bicycling, walking on a treadmill, doing resistance exercises, and stretching.

eating

Astronaut Shannon Lucid with Cosmonauts Aleksandr Kaleri and Valeri Korzun

 Eating a properly balanced diet is also important. Crews for the Shuttle get to choose what foods they will take with them, but meals must include all four food` groups in the correct proportions. Nutritional supplements could help to alleviate some of the mineral losses caused by exposure to the zero-g environment.

Drug treatments are also being studied to help retention of calcium (calcium regulates hormones) and also to help treat cardiovascular deconditioning. The inclusion of a centrifuge to simulate gravity for short periods of time may help crews counteract ill effects, but a human-sized centrifuge has not yet been designed or tested.

Healthy, fresh foods will need to be grown during the long trip to and from Mars. In addition to nutritional benefits, plant chambers and greenhouses stocked with familiar food plants will have psychological benefits for Mars explorers and settlers. plants

NEXT... Keeping Fit, Continued