Homer Hickam Quotes

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.

Basically, most good science in space flight has to do with the behavior of the human body in space. That is where we are lacking info, and where info can only be obtained by flying in space.

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.

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

The biggest technical challenge to sending astronauts on farther and longer missions is biomedical: How do we keep them healthy?

There's a world of insights to be gained into human health and disease by understanding how gravity and space radiation influence biology.

When you talk to crews that went to Mir or have gone up to International Space Station, they say that you go through different phases of adaptation or getting used to the space environment.

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

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.

Sometimes astronauts feel a little ill or get minor scrapes. I trained as a crew medical officer to do basic treatment.

Adjusting to space is easier than adjusting to Earth for me.

We sleep very well in space. We have a sleeping bag each, and when you get into it, you float in the sleeping bag.

Zero G and I feel fine.

The life expectancy of people going to Mars may be decreased by the higher level of radiation that they receive.

The ability of the humans to not only function in space but be very functional when they arrive at their destination, those are the kinds of things we're learning from the science. Fuel transfer technologies and all the things we can learn about the space environment are all valuable to us for pressing on out.

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.

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.

There's a lot of interest from the medical community on how things develop in microgravity, and the hope, later, that is expected to apply to what the changes are in humans as well.

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.

This has been a great experience for me. The first couple of days you don't always feel too well. You adjust to the fluid shifting, how to fly through space without hitting things or anybody else. But then you get in a groove.

One of the coolest things to me about living in space was it really caused me to think about how the human body and mind can adapt to completely different environments.

On Earth, men are seen as superior because of their physical strength, but it means nothing in space, where there is no gravity.

In space for a short time, I think most people could survive that. If you're sending an average person who's healthy for a short period of time, I think that's quite doable.

Just like the bones and muscles, the heart is designed to work in one gravity here on Earth, so when you put the heart in space, it operates differently and changes shape.