Question: Will there be any different effects for children, babies and animals when they go to space, as adults and a very few animals are the only living creatures that have been in space ?

Kirsty Lindsay answered on 27 Jun 2024:

Hi, great question Hang1oxen!
Lets answer it in 2 parts: animals, and small humans.

Animals first: lots of different animals have gone into space, like dogs, chimps, mice, fish, flies, spiders, even a few tortoise! Most of them adapted to space well, and a few, like the mice, where able to have healthy babies. In the spider experiment the spiders struggled to make organised webs, and mice tend to loose muscle and bone like humans. Also: what do you do with the poop?!

Small humans:The honest answer is we don’t really know- no-one under 18 has ever gone into space. Older children would probably react the same way to adults, loosing muscle and bone, but small children who are growing- I don;t know! Being smaller means they might have more problems with radiation. We also know being in space can effect your hormones, so that might be an issue if you where in puberty. Babies would probably have a horrible time in space because it’s very hard to burp in space! The gas and the liquid in your stomach don’t separate out…. so a space baby would probably throw up a lot more than an earth baby- yuck!

Another important part of spaceflight is how you get there and back again- rocket launches and landing are very hard on the adult body, some astronauts have even been hurt on landing. So the smaller, weaker bones and organs of children might have a harder time dealing with G-forces.