Chiaki Mukai
Period One: Profile Period Two: Notable Achievements Period Three: Impact on Our Lives
 Period Four: Virtual Space Mission Mukai Top Page
 Period Three: Impact on Our Lives
What kind of impact may space development have on our lives?
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Entering the SL module through a tunnel during orbit.
It will be possible to create materials that cannot be produced on earth, such as extremely pure crystals made in a gravity-free lab and substances made by evenly mixing two elements with a different specific gravity. These materials may someday lead to the production of highly efficient airplanes and computers and to the development of new medicines.

The sites of space development and the setting of daily life are not really all that divorced from each other. There are technologies that can be used in both, such as modern methods of preserving foods and making them lighter, both important considerations when planning meals on a spacecraft. Freeze-drying, or the quick-freezing and drying of foods, is one such technique. Another is heating foods under pressure, a sterilization technique gaining recognition as the "retort" method.
What can we look forward to from space medicine?
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An experiment to test the effects of pressure on the lower body while in orbit (1994).
Because a weightless environment lightens the load of gravity on the heart and the limbs, extremely heavy people and people with infirm legs can get around more easily in space than on the earth. Treating such people in space for a while might help them to get better quickly.

The treatment of severely burned patients is another possibility, since there would be no gravity forcing their skin into contact with beds and garments. Ointments could be easily applied anywhere on their body while they were floating, and bandages to protect the wounds would be unnecessary. Old people and others confined to bed often
get bedsores in places where the blood does not circulate freely, such as on their backs, heels, and elbows. In space, there would be no such problem.


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Giving a blood test to John Glenn (1998).
But space also has disadvantages,including the increased amount of radiation people are exposed to. More research is needed on how to deal with this, and also on how to deter degeneration of muscles and bones and prevent space sickness.
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