TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) -- Researchers at Florida State University are releasing the findings of a new study about the effects of deep space on astronauts.
It's been 47 years since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon.
Now, nearly half a century later, new data suggests that journey to the moon could have put the health of Armstrong and his fellow Apollo astronauts at risk.
Dr. Michael Delp at Florida State University is studying the effects of deep space travel and heart disease, and he says there's reason to believe there is a link.
"Space radiation is very different type of radiation than we have on Earth, in that there may be biological effects that we really are unaware of," said Dr. Delp.
The Apollo missions took astronauts further into space than anyone had ever gone before - all the way to the moon - and with that came a lot of questions about how this new environment would affect their health.
A number of Apollo astronauts, including Armstrong, eventually suffered from heart disease.
Of those who flew missions in deep space, 43-percent died from the disease. Compare that to 11 percent of astronauts who never left Earth's orbit, and just nine percent who worked missions but never went into space.
"Radiation is one of the big differences between the low-Earth orbit astronauts and the Apollo astronauts. Both were faced with weightlessness, both were in small confined quarters, they were in space about the same amount of time," said Dr. Delp.
But a lot of factors can lead to heart disease, so Delp and his team traveled to New York to test their theory on mice.
There, they were able to re-create the radiation found in deep space, and see how the animals handled it.
"We found that exposure to deep space radiation creates a sustained dysfunction in blood vessels, and it prevents them from being able to resist the formation of plaque," explained Dr. Delp.
While that doesn't prove a direct link between deep space radiation and heart disease, Dr. Delp says it's enough to show more research is needed before we start planning missions to Mars.
"The window between now and potentially when more people will be going into deep space is getting short, so our hope for this is that it can really stimulate more people to be interested in doing this type of research," said Dr. Delp.
Dr. Delp says the next step is looking at the medical histories of astronauts to see if any other issues could have caused heart disease other than the deep space radiation.
NASA has been studying the long term effect of space on astronauts at the International Space Station.
