NASA Mars Mission Update: Why Astronauts Need Swimming Goggles In Red Planet

NASA’s Mars Mission takes an interesting turn as scientists reveal that astronauts will most likely use swimming goggles to protect their eyes while exploring the Red Planet.

According to The Telegraph, swimming goggles will play an important role in deep space missions to Mars. The goggles can protect astronaut vision by helping maintain the correct pressure that could regulate fluid in the eyes.

Scientists who conducted the study based the findings on how the eyesight of astronauts based at the International Space Station (ISS) have drastically changed while stationed at the space laboratory. The condition is called intraocular pressure (IOP) which often results in a host of symptoms like "cotton wool spots." This is described as the white spots on the retina and is often a result of the swelling of the optic nerve.

NASA scientists said that around 75 percent of astronauts who went to space developed this neuro-ocular change in the eyesight that usually results in poor visual sharpness. The condition can be compared to the effects of deep sea diving. In space, this is often caused by microgravity on the astronaut’s circulatory system which also includes shifts in body fluid and of course the abnormal pressure on the brain.

The condition was further studied via new research that was conducted on 20 men at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston. Half of the study participants wore swimming goggles, while the other half didn’t wear eye protection during an experiment. For three days, the group completed exercises in various positions like lying on their back and tilted back head-first. This position is said to simulate the effect of space on the body.

"Swimming goggles firmly compress the skin around the eye. These findings suggest modestly increasing intraocular pressure with swimming goggles could be used to mitigate spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome,” Dr. Jessica Scott of the Universities Space Research Association, Houston said.

"The addition of swimming goggles was associated with modestly increased pressure, which could reduce some of the adverse effects on the eye of long-duration spaceflights," Scott said.

The results of the study were published in JAMA Opthalmology and it also found that exercise often associated with decreases in pressure in the eye.

The results would prove useful to NASA which is currently working doubly hard to bring astronauts back to space. The U.S. space agency plans to bring humans to the Red Planet in 15 years.