• Question: does the heart rate change from when you are in space to when you are on earth?

    Asked by chloe to Alex, Andrew, Delma, Julia, Simon on 4 Dec 2015.
    • Photo: Alexander Finch

      Alexander Finch answered on 4 Dec 2015:

      I don’t know!

      Luckily, our base doctor is an expert in space medicine, and she tells me that yes, the heart rate does indeed slow down for astronauts when they’re in space compared to when they’re on the ground.

      I’m sure that astronauts like Tim hearts will be beating fast on the launchpad and on their ride up to the space station though!!

    • Photo: Julia Attias

      Julia Attias answered on 5 Dec 2015:

      Hi @566nch28!

      Yes – as Alex said, the heart rate does slow down in space. Astronauts get lots more blood in their chests and head in space than on Earth because they are in a floating posture, meaning that their hearts don’t have to work as hard to push blood all the way from the legs back to the heart (which happens when we stand up because gravity forces it down to our legs!). So, it has a chance to relax a little, and not do as much work, which means it doesn’t have to beat as fast!

    • Photo: Andrew Winnard

      Andrew Winnard answered on 5 Dec 2015:

      The problem with all this heart slowing and taking a rest stuff though.. is that it also gets weaker. If you goto space and dont do anything about that, when you come back you wont be able to run as far, or keep up with exercise as well.

      This is where space physios and astronaut trainers come in. The astronauts are trained before space to be fit and healthy (not super men or serious athletes), but reasonably fit. During spaceflight they do 2hours of exercise every day to avoid getting weak. It is not just the heart that slows and gets weak, muscles and bones do too. You can see an astronaut work out in space on the International Space Station here with Commander Hadfield doing the “Hadfield Shake” https://youtu.be/Wam7poPzG1w

      When they come back they also need rehab to learn how to move and hold themselves in gravity again. I was at the European Astronaut Centre when European astronaut Paolo Nespoli came back from six months in space. One of the first things he said about being back was that “gravity sucks!”. They feel so heavy after having spent months floating around being weighless. There is a around a six week rehab period for astronauts to rebuild strength, endurance and get there posture working again (where FRED comes in).

      Julia’s research is also about preventing these problems occuring during space so she can probably tell you more about it too!

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