Worms in space: why we are launching them

Christopher Gaffney, Lancaster University and Bethan Phillips, University of Nottingham

Space launches are some of the most spectacular and nerve-wracking events you can witness. And when you are actually involved in one, you realise just how much can go wrong. We are currently in Florida, nervously counting down the hours until we launch our experiment, sending thousands of microscopic worms to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The launch, taking place at NASA Kennedy Space Center on December 4, isn’t the only one we have to worry about. Our mission is dependent on a Soyuz rocket successfully carrying three crew members to the ISS the day before – the lift off has just been completed. The cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (Russia), and astronauts Anne McClain (US) and David Saint-Jacques (Canada) will help run the science experiments on the ISS once in space.

We are hoping that the worms can help us uncover more about muscle loss in astronauts during spaceflight. Astronauts can lose up to 40% of their muscle mass during a long term mission, resulting in significant reductions in strength and physical capacity. Indeed, a loss of strength of 40% is roughly equivalent to the change in strength that comes from ageing from 40 to 80 years on Earth. The muscle loss phenomenon is therefore a significant obstacle for long term exploratory spaceflight, such as missions to Mars.

Exercise physiology research in the context of spaceflight was first conducted during the NASA Apollo and Skylab missions during the 1960 and 1970s. But despite over five decades of research in space, there are no countermeasures that can successfully prevent the negative effects of spaceflight.

Exercise does go some way to