Astronauts

Overview

Sailing beyond the horizon, astronauts take up residence among the stars to further research into space exploration and colonization. With limited resources, no running water, and under ongoing adaptation to microgravity, they spend most of their days conducting experiments and space station maintenance. Use these resources to learn more about the adventurers of our age.

1440 Findings

Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.

  • Using fitness wearables to track muscle wasting in astronauts

    All that exercising, and astronauts still are likely to lose a large amount of muscle mass while in microgravity. Astronauts can lose up to 20 percent of their muscle in as little as five days in space. Currently, tracking muscle loss means waiting until astronauts land to remeasure their muscle density post-trip. This article explains a NASA-backed fitness wearable that may be able to track muscle atrophy as it happens.

  • The race to build a permanent lunar base

    NASA's Artemis mission—the first to return humans since 1972—aims to explore the moon's water-rich south pole. Finding water is a crucial goal of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent, sustainable human habitat on the moon. NASA also hopes to create a refueling station by using water as a rocket propellant as well as nuclear reactors and solar farms to sustain astronauts. Obviously, significant challenges remain. This article captures the current status of plans to build a lunar base.

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Explore Space

From roughly 60 miles above the Earth's surface to farther than light has traveled during the entire age of the universe, space has captured human imagination for millennia. Explore the final frontier with the best resources curated from across the internet.

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