Should human infinite - travelers ever execute the long - awaited trek to Mars or another aloof planet , they ’ll have baby giraffes to at least partially thank for their voyage .
Extraterrestrial weightlessness — the adept of float through distance within the confines of one ’s slyness — is both a boon and a swearing for astronauts during farsighted foreign mission , as Canada ’s Chris Hadfield says inthis Youtube video . Hadfield note that “ bodies are plan to lick with gravity . The ancestry is pushed to your feet and your heart squeezes it to your head , and if you take away gravity , your heart ’s gon na keep squeezing the blood up to your head … but gravitational force does n’t advertize your blood down to your foot any longer , so your psyche ’s gon na expand ! ”
to boot , because the blood vessel in an cosmonaut ’s low torso are n’t used to the same extent as they are on Earth , they bit by bit turn a loss tone and start develop sparse . Upon re - entry to our major planet ’s atmosphere , this becomes problematic , since the increased gravity rapidly fill the leg and ankles with blood , which results in fainting and dizzy spells .
Though one does n’t broadly link space traveller with fetal giraffes , the two demographics are face with one remarkably - similar challenge : the rapid changeover from a weightless environs to one of significantly greater gravitational wrench .
In the eighties , physiologist Alan Hargens and his colleagues at NASA remark that , shortly after nativity , the blood vessel in vernal Giraffa camelopardalis ' leg speedily thicken , oftenenabling them to take the air within their first hour of sprightliness outside of the uterus .
This find helped improve the potency of an invention cognise as theLower Body Negative Pressure equipment(LBNP ) , which works like an everyday vacuum cleansing agent to “ apply negative imperativeness over the lower consistence . ” This , in turn , simulate earth - comparable conditions and prevent return astronaut from blacking out .
But babe giraffes do n’t hold a monopoly on inspiring NASA engineering science . As Wisconsin animal scientist Neil Anderson explain below , their grownup twin urge several aspect of innovative space suits :
For a much more technical account , check this out !
