One measurement to check the physical condition of the astronauts is to weight them but in space you cant simply stand on the weighing scales like we do on earth. Astronaut tamara jernigan being weighed in space.
Body Composition 101 The Beginner S Guide Inbody Usa
Space body mass measurement. As the chair moves back and forth a timer records how much the crewmembers mass retards the chairs movement. There are fundamental physical difficulties as well as program management issues. New mass measurement systems with the current sensor technologies should be prepared and the new sensor system could be expanded for drop tower in space. For a low earth orbit space flight environment body mass has to be measured in some way in weightlessness. Mass measurements aboard skylab were part of the medical experiments conducted there. The russian built body mass measurement device bmmd is onboard the international space station iss for the purpose.
Medical requirements for the iss astronauts include monthly body mass measurements. As conditions in orbit are without gravity body weight can not be measured. Ance which was designed for measuring the body mass of astronauts is proposed as the 窶倪牢pace scale窶吮 in the space scale a linear ball bearing is also used to connect the target object and the reference mass and the mass of the object is. Although inception of the measurement of astronaut body mass measurement was as old as skylab era progress in the field has not been as expected. Thats where slammd comes in. Prior to the skylab mission it was observed that both us and russian astronauts returning from space had lost weight and nasa worried whether this implied some physical deterioration which could grow worse on longer flights.
Using slammd astronauts can accurately measure body mass with the help of newtons second law of motion fma force is equal to mass times acceleration. Nasa has a research device on the iss. Instead the subjects mass is measured using this special chair.
Gallery of Space Body Mass Measurement
