• Question: How long does it take to recover from the side effects of coming back to Earth after going to space?

    Asked by Cibohpogre to Vinita, Kirsty, Col Op, Charlie 🚀, Andrea on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Andrea Boyd

      Andrea Boyd answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Depends how long you’ve been in space and how much you exercised when you where in microgravity.

      Astronauts on ISS exercise for 2.5hours every day (treadmill running, bicycle riding and weights machine) so they can pretty much walk around like normal straight after landing.

      ISS Crew have a few weeks of rehabilitation and rest when they first return to Earth.

      In the older days before exercise countermeasures were known it took a few months to recover, especially for crew who were on all the long duration flights like Russia did which went for a year or more. But those cosmonauts did recover and most of them went back up in to space more times.

    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      It takes about 1 day of recovery for 1 day in space- so 6 months of recovery for 6 months in space. Some people feel better sooner, some later, but they is good guide.

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