Eniola Olorundare
History has it that the first recorded man in space was Yuri Gagarin, who was there on 12th April 1961. After that pioneering move, NASA has been able to send numerous scientists like Alan Shepard on 5 May, 1961, Virgil Grissom on 21 July, 1961 and Gherman Titov (6 August, 1961) – for research purposes on how to improve human living.
Space travel and exploration have prompted a huge number of research, technological innovations and answers. Now, you may have observed that when astronauts land on earth, they are usually placed in wheelchairs until they can walk. Have you ever asked why?
The fact is that a lot of problems are associated with travelling to space. These include weightlessness, cardiovascular-related problems, balance disorder, eyesight disorder, nasal congestion, and the mother of all change in the immune system.
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in response to the weightlessness in space, the human body begins to change, including loss of bones and muscle mass and since there’s no gravity in space, the muscles are no longer required to maintain our body posture and they become weak and smaller.
When astronauts thus return to Earth they begin to feel the impact of not using their muscles while in Space. And, according to scientific reports, they are five times heavier than their usual body mass. As a result, they are placed on wheelchairs until three to four days when they could recover their working posture.
