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Author
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Topic: Autopsying Apollo astronauts: lunar dust effects
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Tykeanaut
Member Posts: 2216
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 01-30-2011 11:11 AM
   
I have just read "Return to the Moon" by Harrison H. Schmitt. Amongst many other suggestions he makes a case for targeted autopsies of surviving Apollo lunar astronauts to check the effects of exposure.Considering most of these moonwalkers are thankfully still with us and in rude health I personally fail to see the point of such an exercise. Or am I missing something? |
SpaceAholic
Member Posts: 4494
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 01-30-2011 12:50 PM
Can't imagine anybody who is surviving would volunteer for an autopsy... biopsy perhaps! Once they have passed different story.  |
bobzz
Member Posts: 100
From: Batavia, Illinois
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 01-30-2011 01:08 PM
Seeing that many of our moonwalkers are in pretty good shape, I think a little sprinkle of moon dust might do us all good!!  |
Skylon
Member Posts: 277
From:
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 01-30-2011 11:05 PM
I'm assuming this comment has been either taken out of context or misunderstood. I'm sure he meant when an Apollo astronaut passes, they should be autopsied. Clearly not a live one.Is Schmitt volunteering to donate himself to science when he dies here? Jokes aside, I did read awhile ago that it was determined lunar dust could be carcinogenic (but you'd need to breath in a whole lot more than the Apollo astronauts did). As the only people to breath in dust from another world, I suppose there is some point to the exercise. |
Tykeanaut
Member Posts: 2216
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 01-31-2011 08:30 AM
Yes, it is my belief that autopsies are carried out after one passes away. Well in the UK anyway!His comments were aimed at probably obtaining the permission of the current surviving astronauts prior to that day. |
SkyMan1958
Member Posts: 880
From: CA.
Registered: Jan 2011
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posted 02-01-2011 06:17 PM
I am sure that it had to do with the abrasive qualities of the moon dust being akin to exposure to asbestos or fiber glass fibers. If the particles are just the right size they are not cleared out of the lung, and a person's breathing causes the particles to repeatedly rub against the lung tissue and eventually harm the tissue. The end result is a decrease (in some cases very severe) in lung capacity.
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SpaceAholic
Member Posts: 4494
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-01-2011 08:55 PM
Or more simply, a case of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (lunar style) |
dss65
Member Posts: 1171
From: Sandpoint, ID, USA
Registered: Mar 2003
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posted 02-01-2011 09:11 PM
It just sounds like good science to me. And what else would we expect in a suggestion from Harrison Schmitt? |
moorouge
Member Posts: 2458
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 02-02-2011 02:35 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Tykeanaut:
Yes, it is my belief that autopsies are carried out after one passes away. Well in the UK anyway!
Not quite correct. They only take place where the death is unexplained. |
Tykeanaut
Member Posts: 2216
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 02-02-2011 02:37 AM
I assumed that was a given! |
SpaceAholic
Member Posts: 4494
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-02-2011 06:33 AM
quote:
Originally posted by moorouge:
Not quite correct. They only take place where the death is unexplained.
Or to satisfy scientific curiosity - i.e. as in Alien autopsies |
uk spacefan
Member Posts: 168
From: London
Registered: Jan 2007
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posted 02-02-2011 06:59 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Tykeanaut:
..... to check the effects of exposure.
Did Harrison Schmitt forget that he and all the other moonwalkers were each wearing a spacesuit,helmet,visor etc while on the moon???!!
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SpaceAholic
Member Posts: 4494
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-02-2011 07:06 AM
Did they forget to remove their helmets while in the LM and all that dust was circulating in the cabin? |
Tykeanaut
Member Posts: 2216
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 02-02-2011 01:59 PM
Those are good points I hadn't really thought about. What exposure exactly? They were hardly rolling around in it unprotected were they? |
ilbasso
Member Posts: 1522
From: Greensboro, NC USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-02-2011 05:59 PM
Some of the dust was so fine that it could not be filtered out by the air handling equipment - it was finer than the pores in the air filters, so it would just keep recirculating in the cabin air in zero G. Look at the post-EVA pictures of Cernan and Schmitt, and you'll see they were filthy with the stuff. It got into everything. There's a famous story that Dick Gordon made Pete Conrad and Alan Bean strip off their suits so they could be vacuumed off before he let them back into the CM. I believe they could rig up a vacuum hose that sucked the dust out into space. |
dabolton
Member Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009
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posted 02-04-2011 12:28 PM
Or the famous picture of Eugene Cernan in the LM between missions looking like a coal miner. Certainly couldn't a biopsy help settle the moon landings were fake debate? if you can pull lunar dust from their lungs... |
cjh5801
Member Posts: 186
From: Lacey
Registered: Jun 2009
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posted 02-04-2011 01:17 PM
quote:
Originally posted by dabolton:
Certainly couldn't a biopsy help settle the moon landings were fake debate? if you can pull lunar dust from their lungs...
A conspiracy nut would make short work of that evidence. They could argue that if we've never been to the moon, there'd be no way to prove that whatever material came from the astronaut's lungs was actually moon dust. Or if it was moon dust, it could have been added later by having the astronaut (a co-conspirator) breathe in dust from the Russian sample return missions. |
dabolton
Member Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009
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posted 02-04-2011 02:34 PM
You're right. Just about every conceivable way to prove it would be refuted. Send one nut to the moon and the others left behind wouldn't believe him.
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ivorwilliams
Member Posts: 69
From: Welwyn Garden City, UK
Registered: Jan 2005
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posted 02-05-2011 01:04 AM
I read that Pete Conrad was autopsied after his death in a motorcycle accident in 1999. I would imagine that Ron Evens would also have been autopsied as he died from a heart attack. Perhaps his family wanted a definitive cause of death as he was only 56 at the time of his death I believe. |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3160
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-05-2011 05:22 PM
I suspect that Pete Conrad's autopsy was to determine why he failed to survive what should have been a surviveable accident. I very much doubt whether the pathologist who conducted the autopsy would have been looking for evidence of reduced lung function caused by brief exposure to Moon dust. If the surface of the Ocean of Storms had consisted of powdered blue asbestos, I very much doubt if the autopsy would have detected any evidence of it. |
ivorwilliams
Member Posts: 69
From: Welwyn Garden City, UK
Registered: Jan 2005
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posted 02-05-2011 10:09 PM
In the event of death in an accident such as Conrad's, the autopsy would have been thorough enough to establish beyond any doubt, the precise cause of death. As such, his lungs would have been examined in detail and I'm sure had there been anything 'abnormal' it would have been noted. |
dabolton
Member Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009
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posted 02-05-2011 11:18 PM
I thought I had read somewhere that because of the extensive medical evaluations done on the early astronauts, that they all return to Houston every year for continued evaluation. So they are some of the most extensively monitored people in history. Can any confirm this? |
MCroft04
Member Posts: 1647
From: Smithfield, Me, USA
Registered: Mar 2005
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posted 02-06-2011 07:39 AM
Dave Scott said that he no longer participates in a NASA annual check-up; he thinks he gets better care at a private facility. |
dabolton
Member Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009
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posted 02-06-2011 08:19 AM
I was thinking it was being done as a long term study, not as generalized healthcare. |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3160
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-06-2011 03:16 PM
quote:
Originally posted by ivorwilliams:
In the event of death in an accident such as Conrad's, the autopsy would have been thorough enough to establish beyond any doubt, the precise cause of death. As such, his lungs would have been examined in detail and I'm sure had there been anything 'abnormal' it would have been noted.
An autopsy conducted to determine "beyond any doubt" why chest trauma as the result of a motor cycle accident had led to death would not necessarily detect tiny quantities of lunar dust (or, for that matter, of asbestos) in the lung tissue. That would almost certainly require tissue analysis by electron microscope. I don't know about the USA, but chest tissue analysis in UK autopsies routinely involves ordinary light microscopy rather than electron microscopy. |
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