Space changes you. It strengthens some muscles, weakens others, turns fluids inside your body, and your sense of balance will come back. NASA Human Research Program It understands – and sometimes even counter – these changes so that astronauts can prosper in the functions of the future space.
Space pioneers work on the International Space Station for about two hours a day to protect bone density, muscle strength, and cardiovascular system, but the longer it is long in minor gravity, the more difficult it is on the brain and body to read gravity clouds. After months of orbit, the returning astronauts describe the Earth as heavy, loud and still strange. Some of the equation within days, while other astronauts take longer to recover fully.
Adapting to gravity
Mission of Mission-7 Crew-7 in NASA-NASA Space Pioneer Yasmine Moggili, European Space Pioneer (European Space Agency) Andreas Mognesen, and Jacga (Japanese Space Explorement Agency), Satoshi Furukawa Space Pioneer, Rossksermos, and Nazoumun Konstan Borsov-in March 202 after nearly 2002 in space. It was one of the first tests that the volunteer crew was completed with their eyes open and then closed.
“With the closure of the eyes, it was almost impossible to walk in a straight line,” said Muginsen. In space, the vision is the main way to the astronauts who went themselves, but on Earth, the brain must re -learn how to use internal ear balance signals. Moghbeli has its first attempt to exercise look like a “beautiful click dance”.
“I felt very upset during the first two days,” said Moghbeli. “My neck was very tired of carrying my head.” She added that, in general, her body quickly admitted gravity.
All astronauts recover from their schedule and may face various challenges. Moginson said his coordination took time to return. Furukawa noted that he could not look without feeling nauseous. He said: “Day after day, I recovered and got more stable.”
NASA Laral Uhara ran returned in April 2024 after 204 days in space. She said that she felt completely back to normal a week after returning to Earth. Ohara added that her previous experience as the ocean engineer gave her an insight into space tasks. She said: “The presence of these small teams in the field is working with a team elsewhere again on the beach with more resources is a good representation of the satellite station and all the tasks that we hope to do in the future.”
NASA astronaut Nicole Aires, whose first space mission flew with the SPACEX crew in NASA, noticed that the brain adapts quickly to the lack of weight by controlling the vestibular system, which controls balance. “Then, within days of returning to the ground, he remembers it again – it is amazing how quickly the body adjusts,” she said.
When the NASA astronaut Frank Rubio fell in Kazakhstan in September 2023, he had just completed a record task for 371 days-the longest American space strait.
Rubio said his body was adapted to gravity immediately, although his feet and lower back were consolidated more than a year without weight. Thanks to the consistent exercises, Rubio said he felt mostly recovery within two weeks.
Mentally, the extension of his mission from six months to a year was a challenge. “The mixed emotional roller was,” he said, but regular video calls with the family kept it on the ground. “It was almost overwhelming how much love and support we received.”
Astronomers made 8 Matt Dominic, Janet Eps, Michael Parat and Alexander Grapeenkin Silver Silver to the bottom in October 2024 after 235 days at the station. Dominic found sitting on solid surfaces at first. EPPS hair with the weight of the ground immediately. She said, “You have to move and exercise every day, regardless of your feeling of exhaustion.”
Barratt, veteran space pioneer and council accredited in internal and space medicine, explained that recovery differs for every member of the crew, and that every return teaches NASA something new.
It still represents a challenge, even for ancient warriors in space
NASA Sony Williams and Poch Wilmore returned from a nine-month mission with a-9 crew in early 2025. Despite its wide space experience, Williams said that reinstallation to gravity is still difficult. She said: “The weight and weight of things are surprising.” Like others, she pushed herself to move daily to restore strength and balance.
NASA Dun Betette, a veteran publication, returned to the house in April 2025 after 220 days at the space station. At the age of seventy, he was the oldest active astronaut in NASA – but the experiment did not make gravity kind. During the landing, he says he was busy, “emptying my stomach contents on the steps in Kazakhstan.” He reduced the exact appeal from the pain in its joints and muscles, but pulling the Earth back again at one time.
Betit said his recovery seemed similar to previous missions. He said: “I still feel like I am a young child inside.” He explained that the most difficult part does not restore strength in large muscles groups, but re -training small muscles that are often overlooked unused in space. “It is an educational process that gets used to gravity again.”
Recovery occurs day after day – with the help of exercise, support systems and small humor. Regardless of the time when an astronaut is located in space, each trip to Earth is unique.
The Human Research Program helps scientists understand how Faceflight environments affect the health and performance of the astronaut and reach strategies to keep the health crews for future missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. The program studies astronauts before, during and after space light to learn how to adapt the human body with living and working in space. It also collects data through Earth -based representative tasks that can help maintain safer astronauts to explore the future space.
To learn more about how small gravity affects the human body and develops new ways to help astronauts stay in good health, for example, its scientists conduct a mattress studies – they ask for dozens of volunteers to spend 60 days in bed with their heads tilted at a specific angle. Liening in this position deceives the body to respond as if the body was in space, allowing scientists to rid the interventions to face some of the effects of accurate gravity. Such studies, through NASA, spoke on the Cologne campus at the German Space Center in an facility called Envihab – a mixture of “environment” and “habitat”.
Earth -based additional ideas from the health and analog crew of exploration and the analog of human exploration research (HERA) at the Johnson Space Center in NASA in Houston. Both metaphors re -create remote conditions and scenarios for deep space exploration here on Earth with volunteer crews who agree to live and work to isolate Earth’s habitats and bear challenges such as the delay in communication that simulates the type of reactions that will occur during deep space flights to Mars and from Mars. The results of these wild tasks and other NASA will help improve their future interventions, strategies and protocols for astronauts in space.
NASA and its partners have supported humans who have lived and have been working continuously in space since November 2000. After nearly 25 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the only basis that proves space for training and research in deep space tasks, allowing Artemis campaign in NASA, exploring the moon, and future Mars tasks.