Space Travel Screws up Astronauts’ Eyesight

We’re all clamoring to get into zero-g to hang out with cosmonauts and Kate Upton. But did you know interstellar travel hurts your peepers? Apparently so. Astronaut John Phillips went up to the International Space Station with 20/20 vision but came back to Earth unable to focus clearly. The back of his eyes got flatter, pushing his retinas forward. It turns out that eighty percent of astronauts who spend long durations in space return with worse eyesight. This adds another kink into a manned mission to Mars, because if our lads in space manage to survive all the brain-damaging radiation, they might land on the Red Planet only to stumble around like Mr. Magoo. There’s no solution, but there is a good way to test conditions: build a Moon Base. As wonderful a feat as the International Space Station is, it’s still within the Earth’s thermosphere and therefore shielded from cosmic rays. So while it provides all sorts of great research, it doesn’t give us a good idea of what real long-term space travel would do. Please do not tell Senator Chuck Schumer about this problem! That guy will probably try to regulate the radiation, or some other damn fool thing.

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