{"id":95470,"date":"2019-08-28T15:42:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T22:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/a-trip-to-mars-could-cause-brain-damage-heres-how-nasa-aims-to-protect-astronauts"},"modified":"2019-08-28T15:42:25","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T22:42:25","slug":"a-trip-to-mars-could-cause-brain-damage-heres-how-nasa-aims-to-protect-astronauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/a-trip-to-mars-could-cause-brain-damage-heres-how-nasa-aims-to-protect-astronauts","title":{"rendered":"A trip to Mars could cause brain damage. Here\u2019s how NASA aims to protect astronauts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-trip-to-mars-could-cause-brain-damage-heres-how-nasa-aims-to-protect-astronauts.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>During his year in space, Scott Kelly was zapped relentlessly by radiation \u2014 the equivalent of 10 chest X-rays a day for more than 11 months starting in March of 2015. The onslaught <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/nasa-twins-study-shows-how-spaceflight-affects-astronauts-bodies-ncna993536\" target=\"_blank\">damaged the astronaut\u2019s DNA and affected his immune system<\/a> while raising his risk for cancer. And Kelly was aboard the International Space Station, whose tight orbit around Earth lies within the magnetic field that surrounds our planet and blocks the most damaging forms of radiation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/going-mars-will-involve-all-sorts-risks-going-bonkers-might-ncna895261\" target=\"_blank\">Astronauts who travel to Mars<\/a> or other destinations in deep space will leave Earth\u2019s protective cocoon for months or years at a time. And a new NASA-funded study suggests that chronic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/science\/space\/will-mars-scramble-your-brain-scientists-debate-radiation-study-n352016\" target=\"_blank\">exposure to radiation could harm astronauts\u2019 minds<\/a> as well as their bodies \u2014 potentially affecting space flyers\u2019 moods and even their ability to think.<\/p>\n<p>That could be a big deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During his year in space, Scott Kelly was zapped relentlessly by radiation \u2014 the equivalent of 10 chest X-rays a day for more than 11 months starting in March of 2015. The onslaught damaged the astronaut\u2019s DNA and affected his immune system while raising his risk for cancer. And Kelly was aboard the International Space [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}