Through a series of parabolic arcs aboard a NASA aircraft, four recent Dartmouth graduates experienced hours of weightlessness to experiment their solutions to muscle atrophy, the most common physiological problem astronauts experience in space.
Inspired by the work of 1998 space shuttle Columbia crewmember and Dartmouth medicine professor Jay Buckey, Stephanie Feldman '04 recruited three classmates to submit a weightless atmosphere research proposal to NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. The national organization offers various opportunities annually for selected undergraduates to test an experiment in a microgravity environment that is conducted on a KC-135 airplane.
Guided by Buckey, Feldman teamed up with Lea Kiefer '04, Chelsea Morgan '04 and Lauren Talbot '04 to develop a series of free-floating exercises, which they termed Dartmouth Resistance Exercises for Antigravity Muscles, or DREAM, to rectify the common problem of muscle atrophy for astronauts in space.
"As varsity athletes at Dartmouth, we were interested in the problem of muscle atrophy, and it was something we could handle because of our experience in heavy lifting and training," Feldman said. "We wanted to create a device for astronauts to keep their postural muscles strong without requiring lengthy workouts each day and without a bulky workout device."
Using elastic resistance bands, the girls developed exercises that focused on the postural muscles -- specifically the calf, quadricep, hamstring, hip and lower back.
After eight months of extensive research, in-flight protocols, recordings of muscle activity and multiple equipment approvals, the Dartmouth graduates traveled to Ellington Field in Houston, Tex., for training before testing their project.
The first part of training involved understanding the low electrode impedance readings on computers, which would be used to study their muscle activity. When the impedance readings were approved, the next step was oxygen deprivation training in a hypobaric chamber.
"The chamber was pressurized to 25,000 feet and we took turns taking off our masks and breathing the thin air in the chamber," Feldman wrote in a recent feature article in a Women in Science Program newsletter. "Hypoxia is actually what causes drunken behavior when alcohol hampers your cells' ability to use oxygen. So yeah, NASA basically got us drunk."
Prior to the flight, the four subjects measured their muscle activity through an electromygram by performing daily activities that affect the postural muscles, such as pointing and flexing of the feet. The muscle activation is then compared to the amount of activation with the developed DREAM exercises in a weightless environment.
At a height of 26,000 feet, the aircraft leveled off before engaging in a series of dives and climbs, which created 30 seconds of increased gravity followed by 20-to-30-second periods of weightlessness. Over a period of two hours, each flight had 30 parabolas to test the five different stretches used to activate the postural muscles.
"It was like flying except you were just there -- hanging in the air," Feldman wrote. "And every time I touched anything, I went sailing in the other direction. At one point I curled up in a ball and had a few people spin me in endless circles."
Talbot said the best part of the flight was the end of the experiment, allowing her and partner Kiefer to "play around." However, it left an odd after-effect.
"I would say that the closest thing I can relate it to is an unbelievable roller coaster," Talbot said. "After the flight, I had the spins because the motion sickness medicine was so effective, except the room wasn't spinning. Instead it felt like my feet were starting to float up in the air and I was doing flips."
The tested DREAM exercises proved successful, leading to the conclusion that the weightless exercises generate significant muscle activation -- enough to possibly maintain enough muscle mass to prevent atrophy.
The data results of DREAM are still being analyzed, but the women plan to write a report of their findings for future space travel consideration.
"It was such a simple exercise regime and there was so little equipment accompanying it that I can't imagine why they wouldn't adopt it for future aircraft use," Talbot said.
The four graduates will return in the fall to present their findings and to share their experiences of weightlessness, hoping that an interested undergraduate will take the idea to a new level and fly with it.
