Friday was one of those days when periodic bathroom visits are a bit more complicated than usual… it was time for another 24-hour urine collection, followed on Saturday morning by a blood draw, this time with “Scott the Vampire” who helped me fill up seven tubes of blood.
These collections were in support of the Cardio-Ox experiment, which I have talked about in the last logbook, as well as the “Biochemical Profile” and “Repository” projects of the Johnson Space Center.
These are not actual experiments, but rather aim at providing data that can potentially support a variety of research, both current and future, into the human adaptation to spaceflight.
“Biochemical Profile” tests urine and blood samples for a number of proteins and chemicals, which are known to be significant indicators of the metabolic state of the body (biomarkers): a database is created and data can be made available to researchers who request it to support their investigations.
“Repository” is a similar concept, but with an eye to the future. Urine and blood samples are collected and stored long-term under controlled conditions and will be made available in the future to researchers who make a solid scientific case for having them. In the future scientists will be able to test those samples with more advanced analysis methods and they might even be interested in biomarkers that are still unknown to us today!
I concluded my 24-hour urine collection with the first toilet visit on Saturday morning, but three hours after breakfast I did fill one more tube, together with a saliva sample, for the Italian experiment Bone Muscle Check, which aims at validating the analysis of saliva samples to quantify the reduction of bone and muscle mass. If reliable biomarkers can be found in saliva, one does not have to rely on much more invasive and time-consuming blood draws!
In the picture you can see some of our laboratory equipment for human research, including the urine collection bag. As you can imagine, peeing in a cup wouldn’t work very well up here. I remember testing a new female adapter on my very first parabolic flight almost exactly 5 years ago – in the cabin of the ZeroG aircraft, but inside a special tent!
I’ll also confess that I had some urine collection devices with me in Baikonur and I practiced with them before launch. In the end, there’s two things that you really want to be very familiar with when you’re about to launch to space: your spaceship and everything that has to do with using the toilet!
Futura mission website (Italian): Avamposto42
avamposto42.esa.int
(Trad IT) Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS
qui: https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook
(Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici: https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha
(Trad ES) Tradducción en español por +Carlos Lallana Borobio
https://laesteladegagarin.blogspot.com.es/search/label/SamLogBook
(Trad DE) Deutsch von https://www.logbuch-iss.de
(Trad Russo) +Dmitry Meshkov https://samlogbook-ru.livejournal.com
06/05/2015