| Everyone knows that when it comes to buying a life | | | | reports, NASA are currently studying the damage |
| insurance policy, high risk jobs such as acting, working | | | | that radiation can do to on-board pharmaceutics. |
| on an oil rig or being an aircraft pilot will all push up | | | | Testers have found a "significant degradation" in |
| the price quite considerably. What, then, does this | | | | certain medicines including Augmentin and Bactrim. |
| mean for astronauts - those heroes among us who | | | | The affect of weightlessness is also not without |
| choose to get blasted into the atmosphere in a | | | | adverse effects - despite it seeming to be one of |
| matter of seconds? Let's have a look at the risks. | | | | the most alluring factors of space travel. Tests have |
| I suppose we must at first, at least, consider the | | | | shown that astronauts who have experienced |
| lift-off element of space travel. Humans are physically | | | | weightlessness for significant amounts of time have |
| limited by the amounts of G-forces they can endure | | | | been known to develop loss of bone density, a |
| and it would be possible (but very slow) to reach | | | | lacking in muscle strength and endurance, postural |
| space whilst undergoing just one G, therefore it is | | | | instability and aerobic capacity. It is suggested that if |
| usual for lift-off to push to between five and seven | | | | an astronaut was to ever travel to Mars, his/her |
| Gs with the aim of reaching space in just eight | | | | endured bone mass loss due to weightlessness would |
| minutes. It is no surprise then that one of the biggest | | | | mean upon his arrival he or she would simply collapse. |
| space fatalities happened during the take-off of | | | | So if space travel is so dangerous, how much does |
| space shuttle Challenger in 1986. | | | | life insurance cost for astronauts? Insurance specialist |
| Interestingly, once in orbit, they are moving just as | | | | Ed Hinerman claims that a person who becomes an |
| fast. But risks for the astronauts actually get worse | | | | astronaut will need to be reassessed and will most |
| when one considers the amount of radiation in space. | | | | probably have to start paying a flat extra on every |
| Not only can cosmic radiation have an effect on | | | | thousand pounds of his policy. He states that if one |
| blood marrow, whilst weakening the immune system | | | | was to pay £2,000 a year, an astronaut may |
| and increasing the risk of infection - it can also have | | | | have to pay over £16,000 per year flat rate. |
| an affect on the medicines taken along. After recent | | | | It must really be worth it. |