Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. When a SpaceX supply mission recently
Speaker 1: visited the International Space Station, it's five thousand, eight hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: That's two thousand sixty kg of cargo. Included equipment for
Speaker 1: studying thunder storms from the vantage point of space and
Speaker 1: growing vegetables in orbit, the sort of stuff you'd expect
Speaker 1: astronauts to need for their research. But tucked in with
Speaker 1: those items was something more unusual. Containers with samples of
Speaker 1: frozen sperm from twelve anonymous human donors obtained from a
Speaker 1: California sperm bank, along with six samples of sperm from
Speaker 1: breeding bowls. Those samples will be used in a planned
Speaker 1: experiment micro eleven Astronauts will fall the sperm and add
Speaker 1: chemicals that trigger activation of movement and preparation for fusing
Speaker 1: with an egg. Then they'll put the sperm under a
Speaker 1: microscope so they can capture video footage of the sperm swimming.
Speaker 1: In addition, they'll preform chemical tests. Meanwhile, back on Earth,
Speaker 1: other researchers will be performing these same tests on identical
Speaker 1: samples of spermphore comparison. The experiment is designed to study
Speaker 1: sperm motility, that is, the ability to move and swim
Speaker 1: in microgravity conditions, and how successful they are in triggering
Speaker 1: the physiological changes known as capacitation, which enables them to
Speaker 1: penetrate and fertilize eggs. That information could help to answer
Speaker 1: the question of whether humans would be capable of reproducing
Speaker 1: if they settle in future colonies on the Moon or Mars,
Speaker 1: or if they venture on even longer journeys into the cosmos.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Joe tash And, emeritus professor in the
Speaker 1: Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of
Speaker 1: Kansas Medical Center. He said, if you don't have healthy sperm,
Speaker 1: you've got real risk to multigenerational survival in space. Dash
Speaker 1: was the lead scientist in developing the experiment and continues
Speaker 1: to be involved as a consultant. NASA has been conducting
Speaker 1: research on reproductive and developmental space biology since the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: According to an email from researchers at NASA's AIMS Research
Speaker 1: Center in California Silicon Valley who are involved in the
Speaker 1: micro eleven research. In one study published in a March
Speaker 1: issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For example,
Speaker 1: female frogs aboard a space shuttle were induced to ovulate
Speaker 1: so their eggs could be fertilized. The study demonstrated that
Speaker 1: gravity induced rotation of the zygote, that's the cell formed
Speaker 1: by the fusing of a sperm and an egg, wasn't
Speaker 1: necessary to develop a free swimming tadpole with a normal body.
Speaker 1: Micro eleven marks the first time that human sperm have
Speaker 1: been launched into space, that is, aside from the ones
Speaker 1: inside male astronauts bodies, though there have been previous research
Speaker 1: efforts involving animal sperm. Back in the nineteen eighties, German
Speaker 1: researchers launched full seamen into space on a suborbital rocket
Speaker 1: that briefly subjected them to a minute and a half
Speaker 1: of weightlessness, which was recorded on video. Tash says then
Speaker 1: in Tash and colleagues sent samples of sea urchin sperm
Speaker 1: on two space Shuttle missions. In those two experiments, it
Speaker 1: wasn't possible to shoot video under a microscope, so instead
Speaker 1: they looked at signal transduction, the molecular mechanism within the
Speaker 1: sperm cell that tells it when to start wiggling its tail.
Speaker 1: The results of the German study and Tash's research both
Speaker 1: found that sperm actually swam faster in microgravity than they
Speaker 1: do back on Earth. But in one of Tasha's experiments,
Speaker 1: he detected what maybe a big hindrance to procreating in space.
Speaker 1: When sea urchin sperm were exposed to chemical compounds called
Speaker 1: peptides that would be released by eggs, the signaling that
Speaker 1: triggers capacitation, an essential part of reproduction, occurred much more slowly.
Speaker 1: The micro eleven experiment will gather data on the effects
Speaker 1: of microgravity on swimming and capacitation in separate trials. According
Speaker 1: to Tash, but microgravity isn't the only factor that could
Speaker 1: influence reproduction in space. Outside of the Van Allen Belts
Speaker 1: that shield Earth from high energy particles from space radiation,
Speaker 1: exposure could create serious problems. A study published in a
Speaker 1: May seventeen issue of Reproduction found that exposure to charged
Speaker 1: particles of the sort found in space damaged the ovaries
Speaker 1: of female mice. We spoke via email with the studies
Speaker 1: corresponding author, Eureka Luteraier, a professor of medicine, developmental and
Speaker 1: cell biology, and public health at the University of California, Irvine.
Speaker 1: She said, our research found the finite ovarian follical reserve
Speaker 1: is depleted by exposure to charged oxygen or iron particles,
Speaker 1: which are components of galactic cosmic rays. This damage is
Speaker 1: irreversible and will result in early onset of a variant
Speaker 1: failure or premature menopause. Additionally, Luteraire said that human and
Speaker 1: animal studies provide evidence that exposure to gamma radiation and
Speaker 1: charged iron particles decreases sperm motility. But even if it's
Speaker 1: possible to conceive in space, pregnancy and childbirth could be problematic.
Speaker 1: Chris Lenhart, a senior faculty member at the Baylor College
Speaker 1: of Medicine Center for Space Medicine, says in an email
Speaker 1: that it's not known how well an embryo would develop
Speaker 1: in the environment of space, or whether natural birth would
Speaker 1: be possible. Today's episode was written by Patrick Jake Tiger
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Clay. If you enjoy our show
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Speaker 1: and of course for lots more on this and other
Speaker 1: exploratory topics. Check out our home planet, how stuff works
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