What the Polaris Dawn mission could reveal about human health in space | Space

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, in which billionaire Jared Isaacman and three other crew members traveled to space in a Crew Dragon, has made headlines for including the first-ever private spacewalk. While the flight has been hailed as historic for that reason, Isaaman has said that the trip is not merely for fun but is making contributions to science as well. 

The research in the Polaris program, planned to be three flights, is particularly focused on human health and the effects of spaceflight on the body. The current mission will be studied by Baylor College of Medicine, with the astronauts giving blood and going through extensive biomedical testing both before and after the flight.

But what sets the Polaris Dawn mission apart is its altitude, 870 miles above the Earth’s surface to be exact. That’s far higher than the typical altitude of the International Space Station, at around 250 miles, and makes Polaris Dawn the farthest humans have been from Earth since the Apollo missions. 

That altitude took the craft through Earth’s inner Van Allen belt, a region of charged particles that protect the planet from dangerous radiation. The crew members are fitted with sensors to measure their cumulative radiation exposure over the mission, and the spacecraft interior is fitted with a sensor to detect the different types of radiation in…