For the low price of $200,000, you can reserve a seat in Virgin Galactic's very first suborbital space flight. Ashton Kutcher is doing it, so why not join him? All Virgin needs is a $20,000 deposit to guarantee a spot on SpaceShipTwo.
Now that Richard Branson's space enterprise is becoming a reality, potentially launching in 2014 according to TIME, scientists are taking an interest in health complications from the zero-gravity and increased radiation that accompany such a departure.
UCSF Professor Marlene Grenon explains, "There is definitely a trend toward more work being done in [space medicine] as the medical field catches up with what's going on in commercial space transportation. This [effect] is important to understand with regards to long-duration space flight and exploratory missions. We feel that we are pushing the limits of our knowledge and really contributing to making journeys in space as safe as possible."
TIME notes that health complications may include muscle deterioration, motion sickness, and an enhanced cancer risk.
Grenon adds, "We have to think about civilians flying as opposed to what is currently pretty much only governmental astronauts. If we start to see that only completely healthy people will be able to fly, then we are going to see a drop in the number of people going. We need to address the people with medical conditions who would like to fly. If anyone can fly, there will be a lot of conditions that will be different in space, and we need to better understand these disease conditions in microgravity."
As the industry grows and ticket prices lower, the need for research surrounding space flight health hazards will only increase.
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