An 18-year old flew on Jeff Bezos’ rocket to space recently, the youngest person to ever go into space.
Obviously, no space agency or company in their right mind would launch a young child (say, 3-5 years old) into space. But what would be the medical effects of doing so, and what would make it unsafe?
It depends on what physical impacts you are concerned about, and the method of getting into space. On the Blue Origin flight, it appears that launch forces were around 3 Gs, but landing was briefly up at 5 Gs. I suspect (but can’t find the data online) that young children may be adversely affected by sustained G forces. The Virgin Galactic flight had roughly the same G forces going up but slightly higher on preparing for landing.
It’s not clear if 0 Gs for a brief time would impact children, and emergency maneuvers (and training for them) might generate much higher G forces.
The answer: we don’t know.
No one younger than 18 has ever gone into space. We have no data.
For all we know young children might tolerate it better than adults. Or worse. Or the same. We just don’t know.
I don’t see why once getting there that zero g would be anymore dangerous to babies and little kids than swimming. Probably safer than swimming.
Did chimpanzees or dogs have difficulties? I don’t think so, has anything put up there had issues?
Now long term exposure may have an effect on bone and muscle development. That may warrent concern and require research.
Speaking generally, smaller creatures tolerate G forces better than larger ones. For one example, consider that in pulling out of a dive, a Peregrine Falcon routinely handles 20+ G, which would probably kill most humans.
So it seems fully plausible that small children would be fine with the acceleration of launch and landing.
Safely? I’m going to say starting somewhere between puberty and 18, due to far better chances of higher radiation exposure in space. Pregnant women and children, are more susceptible to ionizing radiation than fully grown adults.
It’s not the cells specifically, but it’s the chances of genetic mutation at a younger age. . . I’m not a biologist, but I do know our radiation safety protocols here.
Tripler
I always smirk when the tech asks me if “I think I’m pregnant,” just before an X-ray.
If an unknowingly pregnant astronaut had ever flown, we might have discovered how it affects human foetuses. Unknowingly pregnant fighter pilots have flown and the resulting children have been okay.
Considering the number of medical tests performed on astronauts until almost the time they are placed in the capsule, it’s extremely unlikely that a pregnancy will go unnoticed. From memory at least two astronauts have been removed from a flight because they became pregnant, one of those was fairly close to launch even.
That said, spacecraft aren’t made equal. The Mercury and especially Gemini spacecraft saw the astronauts pull significant “G”s , over 10 for the latter, which limited it’s use only to those people who had fighter experience, Apollo had less, about 6, but still requiring trained people. The Space shuttle was designed from the outset to be useable by anyone. I don’t have the numbers for CrewDragon, but would not be surprised if it’s similar to the Shuttle.
Soyuz pulls some high “G”’s as well but apparently only momentarily, enough that the Russians are happy to let laypeople travel with just some training,
The Shenzhou’s early interaction did have some very high G forces (and vibrations, which in the first launch were bad enough that the Test pilot origin astronaut admitted to being scared), no information on subsequent versions.
I would WAG it would be easier for them. Children are very adaptable and able to sustain things adults would have a much more difficult time with. Now long term space flight like on the ISS might be more of a issue as they would be developing in zero g, though animal studies in that environment could provide clues before we test that out on human children.
True, but there’s a difference in flying under/through a shielding atmosphere between 30-50k feet, and being above the Karman line at ~330,000 feet. Above the Karman line, you’re above the thermosphere which absorbs nearly all of the solar ultraviolet and X-ray radiation. You’re exposed to more hazard in orbit, than y’are zipping around at Mach 1.2.
I’ll have to dig around to see if legitimate radiation exposure studies have been done–might be illuminating!
Tripler
Pun intended.
I would think so too. The reason for that assumption would be that as living beings get larger, the volume of the body (and hence mass, assuming equal density) increases with the cube of the growth factor; but things like the cross sectional area of the bones, which determines skeletal strength, increases with the square of the growth factor. So the smaller, the more beneficial will skeletal strength be relative to mass.
But I’m making this up, so I might be totally wrong.
20 gees probably won’t kill a human, but it will make us pass out. The record for measured g-forces experienced by a human was 46.2, and the subject (Air Force Colonel John P. Stapp) survived that. And that’s even with the increase in density resulting from solid brass testicles.
Generally anything above 5g requires a g suit that forces the blood out of you core body to your brain, otherwise you pass out and lose conciseness and possibly die depending how long you are exposed. A physically fit jet fighter pilot may withstand up to 7 g by knowing how to work his core muscles but generally he relies on a g suit. Ejection seats put an about a 10g load for a very short period of time and can only be withstood due to it being inline with the spine and for a very short period. Avionics equipment is tested at 15 g, just so it remains working after you comeout of blackout and jets break up at that point. Most humans can’t do 20g for any period. Fighter jocks and test pilots are usually of small build and in superior shape.
I’ve worked on human centrifuges and ejection seat trainers. I pussied out at 2.8g in the centrifuge, didnt try the ejector seat as I never was a roller coaster type guy. Some coworkers almost made it to 4.5. My older bosses would tell me stories of testing at Edwards AFB back in the 50s. They said a lot of data on the limits of human stress came from captured Nazi data on prisioners.
But all this talk about G’s in fighter pilots was referring to pilots who are sitting upright - that’s how fighter pilots sit in an airplane. Astronauts, though, are lying down when they rocket goes up. So they are facing G’s in a much different way than fighter pilots, and can probably sustain more this way.
Fighters can fly almost strait up to. And they make high g turns on a regular basis to avoid being killed. Astronauts train in fighters.
I’d be very surprised if NASA doesn’t have some sort of information along those lines for astronauts from Shepherd forward. So far as I can recall, astronauts have not have higher than usual rates of cancer, although it is a very small sample to study. I think cataracts might be more likely, but I’m not certain. It’s not something I’ve researched before.
It was a 10 minute flight. I doubt age would be factor in a flight so short.
I doubt so as well, as long as nothing goes wrong. Reentry is more dangerous.
Nitpick, humans have survived higher forces during impacts.
The highest recorded G-force experienced by a human who survived was during the 2003 IndyCar Series finale at Texas Motor Speedway on October 12, 2003 in the 2003 Chevy 500 when the car driven by Kenny Bräck made wheel-to-wheel contact with Tomas Scheckter’s car. This immediately resulted in Bräck’s car impacting the catch fence that would record a peak of 214 g 0.[18][19]
That sounds like that’s the acceleration of the catch fence, not the acceleration of the driver (which would be lower, if there are any crumple zones or other safety features in the car). Which might still be higher than what Stapp experienced, but unless race drivers typically wear accelerometers, the value there wouldn’t be known.