Sunita Williams Quotes

The microgravity or the very, very low amount of gravity that we have up in space forces some changes in different processes. It forces changes in us as human beings.

The workouts have positively impacted the astronauts' bones and muscles, and they are coming back in really good shape. But some are losing bone and muscle but not as much as we saw in the early days.

The reason space missions need artificial gravity is clear: humans simply did not evolve to live in zero gravity.

People do really well on space missions, but it's the physiological, the medical stuff, the stuff like radiation, loss of bone mass and muscle mass and density. It's those things that we need to figure out.

We want people to continue learning new things about what space does to the human body. It's important for us to understand that and make sure when we get ready to fly to Mars that we are ready for what we're going to be exposed to.

We were only on orbit a little over two days, so we had no adverse effects from being weightless.

Mars missions will require up to three years in reduced gravity, so we need to make sure astronauts can not only survive but thrive as they move outward to explore this new world.

I think it's going to be a very important, unique data set in terms of measuring the behavior of your lower body in space and trying to figure out what we can do to preserve bone and muscle density.

Adaption of the human body in space is not yet mastered. As soon as you hit space, you feel your body is going through a period of mutation. There's no blood in your head; you have a hard time swallowing. We're not born to naturally be in space.

Life as an astronaut in space is a very interesting one. There are things we all take for granted here on earth, like gravity, that can make things a bit challenging. One of the fun things about getting here is the zero gravity and floating around. But it also makes things very difficult.

In space, you need to exercise your heart since it's not pumping blood around at the same rate.

As the spinal cord increases, it makes you taller. However, after landing on the Earth, you shrink a bit. What was worrisome was that some of the wrinkles, which had disappeared there, came back.

The majority of astronauts have to change their eyeglasses while in space. They bring eyeglasses with them and typically change a few months into the mission.

During my time in orbit, I lost bone mass, my muscles atrophied, and my blood redistributed itself in my body, which strained my heart. Every day, I was exposed to ten times the radiation of a person on Earth, which will increase my risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of my life.

One thing we've learned about space is that the human body starts to fall apart after relatively short exposures to microgravity.

While you're in space, you grow in height! Without the constant force of gravity on your spine, it stretches out, and you're actually taller when you land. It doesn't last long though.

Two hundred miles from the surface of the earth there is no gravity. The laws of motion are suspended. You could turn somersaults slowly slowly, weight into weightlessness, nowhere to fall. As you lay on your back paddling in space you might notice your feet had fled your head. You are stretching slowly slowly, getting longer, your joints are slipping away from their usual places. There is no connection between your shoulder and your arm. You will break up bone by bone, fractured from who you are, drifting away now, the centre cannot hold.

Zero G and I feel fine.

Other anatomical changes associated with long-duration space flight are definitely negative: the immune system weakens, the heart shrinks because it doesn't have to strain against gravity, eyesight tends to degrade, sometimes markedly (no one's exactly sure why yet). The spine lengthens as the little sacs of fluid between the vertebrae expand, and bone mass decreases as the body sheds calcium. Without gravity, we don't need muscle and bone mass to support our own weight, which is what makes life in space so much fun but also so inherently bad for the human body, long-term.

With no gravitational force to work against, your body not only doesn't need the same amount of muscle and bone, it starts breaking them down. As on Earth, so in space: use it or lose it. And exercise may not solve the problem.

Intervention for the prevention and control of osteoporosis should comprise a combination of legislative action, educational measures, health service activities, media coverage, and individual counselling to initiate changes in behaviour.

Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. I was over 50, Caucasian, thin, small-framed, and I have it in my genetic history. It was almost a slam-dunk.

Throughout the history of spaceflight and the study of effects of exploring to human, space environment to human body, we have accumulated enough knowledge to be able to move over to the next step: getting ready for interplanetary missions, for interplanetary exploration.

Today osteoporosis affects more than 75 million people in the United States, Europe and Japan and causes more than 2.3 million fractures in the USA and Europe alone.

I have severe osteoporosis. Your bones start to collapse.