Drinking in ZERO-G! (and other challenges of a trip to Mars)

A trip to #Mars involves radiation, muscle and bone loss, intermediate axis theorem and liquids. Check out Mars on National Geographic, Monday Nov 12 at 9/8c #sponsored When I got offered the chance to fly in another #zeroG plane, I jumped at the chance. Do you know how hard it is when you are thrust into low-gravity, like the 37% of Earth s gravity of Mars, and you have to remember what you were going to say in a 30 second window as blood floods your head? It s pretty hard. It would be even harder to actually travel to Mars. It would take about 8 months in microgravity during which time your muscles and bones would weaken substantially, even if you exercise for hours a day like the astronauts on the space station. And your heart is a muscle too so it weakens as well. Before I contemplated these rates of muscle and bone loss, I thought the major challenge with a round trip journey to Mars would be the logistics of spacecraft and having enough fuel to get back. But with the weakening of the human body, it s an open question whether anyone would really want to come back. Filmed by Steve Boxall Music from Epidemic Sound: http://epidemicsound.com