MCG continues study of SANS after Polaris Dawn spaceflight mission

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – We have an update to a story we first told brought last month about physicians at the Medical College of Georgia working with the recent Polaris Dawn Spaceflight Mission which returned last week.

“Not only was it the highest mission since Apollo in 1972, it was the first civilian spacewalk, it was the first civilian medical experiment in space, along with many other things,” said Dr. Matthew Lyon, director of the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) Center for Telehealth.

Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome, or SANS, impacts more than 70% of astronauts, causing what doctors think might be structural changes in the brain, ultimately causing changes in vision.

“None of our astronauts would be expected to show any symptoms of that, but what we’re looking for is that fluid shift that would predispose somebody to SANS,” said Lyon. ‘So, if we see that fluid shift and some of the experiments that we did was looking to see if we can measure the amount of fluid shift, if we can measure the amount of fluid shift, then this was a success.”

The spaceflight was delayed a few times with the expected departure date for August 27 ^th but it didn’t launch from Florida’s Space Coast until September 10th.

“This was a special mission because they had to do a spacewalk,” he said. “So, everything that they needed for the whole mission they had to take with them, including all their air and oxygen. So, when they were looking at take off, they had to plan on their landing because they could only stay in space for seven days because that’s all the supplies they had, so if there was any kind of delay, that could be bad.”

Dr. Lyon said they look forward to seeing what the data shows and the outcome of this experiment.

“It’s really a privilege to be able to be part of such an amazing, innovative mission.”

Dr. Lyon added it will take quite a few months to collect all the data from the ultrasound device, on this mission, before they can prove this to be a dependable detector for SANS.

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