The gravity loading countermeasure skinsuit is a collaborative project with researchers from King’s College London (KCL), working on a design provided by MIT with help from the European Space Agency (ESA). The goal of the project is to provide a more efficient method of maintaining bone and muscle mass during long term missions in space, aboard for example the International Space Station (ISS).
Having evolved under the pressure of Earth’s gravity, human beings are not naturally suited to life in space, therefore upon reaching the ISS an astronaut’s body attempts to adapt to the weightlessness of its new environment. There is no longer any need for the added strength required to move about on the Earth’s surface and so the muscle and bone in the body begin to degrade due to atrophy, with the average astronaut losing roughly one to two per cent of bone mass per month in orbit.
via Gizmag
Image: King’s College London, CHAPS
