Apollo Astronauts More Likely to Die From Heart Problems

Deep space explorations have its toll on the human body, as a recent study suggests that Apollo astronauts are five times more likely to die from cardiovascular diseases.

Based on data, 43 percent of astronauts from the Apollo missions died of heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases including Jim Irwin of Apollo 15, Donn Eisele of Apollo 7, Ronald Evans of Apollo 17 and Wally Schirra of Apollo 11, according to a report by Gizmodo.

The study citing that cardiovascular diseases and heart problems are the causes of their death was published in Nature's Scientific Reports. According to the study, the data is five times higher when compared to astronauts who have never been in outer space or those who haven't left the low-Earth orbit.

The possible reason could be the exposure to space radiation, according to Michael Delp of Florida State University, the lead author of the study. Scientists have already established that space radiation poses a risk to human astronauts involved in deep space explorations but the recent study, citing the cause of death of most Apollo astronauts are related to that, further proves the danger of space radiation.

This also means that although considered heroic at some point, traveling to different planets beyond the Earth's orbit like Mars can be risky. That is why NASA is looking at ways to protect astronauts for deep space exploration in the anticipated journey to Mars and is continuously studying the health of astronauts especially the cardiovascular system  to come up with ways to protect humans that will be sent deeper into space.

The research is also valuable to other commercial space services companies like SpaceX who intends to send humans to deep space. "With all of these plans for going into deep space we have only had this one really small group [of Apollo astronauts] that has actually done it," Michael Delp, the first author of the study said in a statement. "Previous to this study nobody had ever looked at their long-term health consequences - really pulling out the Apollo astronauts out of the group of other astronauts."

Experts added that to further protect astronauts in their future deep space missions, they have to travel the fastest way possible to avoid longer exposure to space radiation.

To analyze the implications of the study, Delp used mice on an experiment and based on the findings he concluded that space radiation is indeed harmful to the astronauts "vascular health."