Fluid buildup is causing astronauts' vision to be impaired after stays in space

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Based on the high-resolution orbit and brain MRI scans taken of their 16 astronauts, the team found that the long-duration astronauts had far higher orbital CSF volume – CSF pooling around the optic nerves in the part of the skull that holds the eye. They also had significantly higher ventricular CSF volume, which means they had more CSF accumulating in the cavities of the brain where the fluid is produced. “The research provides, for the first time, quantitative evidence obtained from short- and long-duration astronauts pointing to the primary and direct role of the CSF in the globe deformations seen in astronauts with visual impairment syndrome,” says Alperin.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago this week (here’s the abstract), and have yet to be peer-reviewed, so we have to wait for the results to be replicated by an independent team before we can know for sure that this is the answer.

But even if this, or NASA’s original hypothesis turns out to be more accurate, we still have a big problem on our hands. Very few astronauts have spent more than a full year in space, and astronauts are already facing at least 18 months in space to get to and from Mars and that’s if they flew home immediately after arriving – if we want to think about colonisation or extended stays on Mars, we’re going to have to consider blindness as a potential complication.

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