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Comment by DaoVeles | Hacker News Reader

This is no surprise. Look up how Scott Kelly described his experience coming back after a year on the ISS.

https://www.snexplores.org/article/how-year-space-affected-s...

"The researchers tested Scott again after six months back on land. Roughly 91 percent of the genes that had changed activity in space were now back to normal. The rest stayed in space mode. His immune system, for instance, remained on high alert. DNA-repair genes were still overly active and some of his chromosomes were still topsy-turvy. What’s more, Scott’s mental abilities had declined from preflight levels. He was slower and less accurate on short-term memory and logic tests."

What that study does not take into account is that Scott was traveling around the world for 6 months giving interviews. I would have also expected a decline in that context.

Also his mental abilities recovered back to baseline some time after.

His vision didn't

that doesn't explain the changes in genetics

I need to look through the study more, but what was done to control for the isolation that a year on the ISS brings?

You could easily control for it by comparison with a cohort who has just discovered DoTA

I don't think that's a factor. The ISS is anything but lonely. Astronauts have internet up there and are regularly in touch with their family. I think it's also reasonable to say they know what they're getting into when they go up, so physical separation is unlikely to affect astronauts as badly as the general population. Many of these people are ex-military and have regularly been on long deployments away from home.

I'll have to disagree based on my reading of Endurance by Scott Kelly. It is more the profound isolation away from everyone on earth, not the lack of communication. He struggled with saying goodbye to everyone who came up to the station with him, as he watched the missions rotate. It becomes different when you're doing a whole year vs 3-6 months.

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