William Morgan
One of the astronauts who splashed back on Earth last Friday after going further into space than any other person, has revealed the devastating impact that 10 days in zero gravity has on the human body.
Christina Koch, one of the four astronauts on the groundbreaking Artemis II mission to the other side of the moon, shared her difficult rehabilitation journey on social media - showing that landing in the seas off California was only the beginning of their return to normality.
She shared a video showing just how hard it is for her body to re-acclimatize to the Earth's gravity after a week and a half inside a cramped capsule, despite each member of the crew doing 30 minutes of resistance training each day.
The 47-year-old astronaut and first woman to fly around the moon released the footage of her struggle to educate her almost two million followers about why the it takes so long to recover from space travel, while joking: "Guess I’ll be waiting a minute to surf again."
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With Koch struggling to remain upright and walk in a straight line in the video, even a week after splashdown, it is apparent that her brain is still trying to figure out which way is up.
She explained: "When people live in microgravity, the systems in our body that have evolved to tell our brains how we’re moving, the vestibular organs, don’t work correctly."
Rather than this representing just a weakness in human biology, this is actually because of humanity's ability to adapt. Koch said: "Our brains learn to ignore those signals and so when we first get back to gravity, we are heavily reliant on our eyes to orient ourselves visually.
"A tandem walk with eyes closed can be quite the challenge!
As with much of the data gathered from astronauts who travel where few have ever gone before, this not only informs scientific understanding about the impact of life in near zero gravity, but research on terra firma too.
Koch added that 'learning about this can help inform how we treat vertigo, concussions and other neuro-vestibular conditions on Earth,' before reassuring her followers that her shaky performance was all part of her long-term rehabilitation.
She said: "Luckily we’re already adapting back to gravity at 7 days post-splashdown!"
This scientific data gathered about the astronauts, as well as on their jaw-dropping journey to the edge of deep space, will not be the only impact of the Artemis II mission, which brought moon missions back into the popular imagination and renewed interest in our nearest nieghbor.
At a press conference on Thursday, sat alongside her crewmates Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen, Koch eplained: “I cannot overstate how important that was to us.
“It was every bit as important as accomplishing the technical goals and being there for our NASA teammates was to make this the world’s mission.”