Deep space travel exposes astronauts to extended periods of space radiation and mechanical unloading, both of which may induce significant muscle and bone loss. Astronauts are exposed to space radiation from solar particle events (SPE) and background radiation referred to as galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). To explore interactions between skeletal muscle and bone under these conditions, we hypo...

Late effects from the high charge and energy (HZE) ions present in the galactic cosmic rays (GCR) including cancer and the poorly understood risks to the central nervous system constitute the major risks for exploration missions. Methods used to project risk in low Earth orbit (LEO) are viewed as highly uncertain for projecting risks on exploration missions because of the limited radiobiology d...

Telomeres are nucleoprotein complexes comprised of tandem arrays of repetitive DNA sequence that serve to protect chromosomal termini from inappropriate degradation, as well as to prevent these natural DNA ends from being recognized as broken DNA (double-strand breaks) and triggering of inappropriate DNA damage responses. Preservation of telomere length requires telomerase, the specialized reve...

INTRODUCTION For future space missions at the International Space Station, health risk to astronauts caused by space radiation needs to be properly quantified and controlled. The radiation field in space is low-dose rate, but the accumulated dose can be high during long-term missions (1). Radiological risk under such a low dose-rate exposure, i.e. stochastic effect, has generally been evaluated...

Exposure to a small number of high-energy heavy charged particles (HZE ions), as found in the deep space environment, could significantly affect astronaut health following prolonged periods of space travel if these ions induce mutations and related cancers. In this study, we used an in vivo mutagenesis assay to define the mutagenic effects of accelerated 56Fe ions (1 GeV/amu, 151 keV/μm) in the...

Radiobiology experiments performed in space are deemed necessary for validation of risk-assessment methods. The understanding of space radiobiology experiments must combine knowledge of the space radiation environment, radiation transport, and models of biological response. The heavy ion transport code HZETRN has recently been combined with improved models of the galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and ...

INTRODUCTION. Astronauts on deep space missions will be exposed to ~25 cGy of Galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). The long-term consequence of exposure to such doses is largely unknown, but we have previously shown that exposure of juvenile rats to 20 cGy 1 GeV/μ 56 Fe resulted in pronounced deficits in hippocampus-dependent learning (Britten et al, 2012) and Attentional Set shifting (ATSET) (Lona...