Weightless Workouts
A new fitness machine on the space station brings astronaut exercise into the 21st century
- By airspacemag.com
- AirSpaceMag.com, December 31, 2008
NASA
Every holiday season, we Earth-bound types do penance on the treadmill for having scarfed down too much fudge and eggnog. Astronauts exercise not out of guilt, but to stay healthy (gotta keep the bones strong and the muscles from going slack in weightlessness). Toward that end, the crew of the International Space Station got a present just in time for the holidays—new exercise equipment.
Astronauts Mike Fincke and Sandy Magnus have spent much of this week setting up the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED), which arrived on space shuttle Endeavour last month to replace the crew’s old fitness equipment (modeled here by astronaut Suni Williams on board the station in 2007). As of midweek Fincke and Magnus were still struggling, like many a parent on Christmas morning, to unpack and assemble their new equipment—a restraining bolt didn’t want to come loose. But assuming everything finally comes together, the ARED will be bigger, better, and generally more deluxe than any fitness machine ever used in space.
Click through the photo gallery at right for a brief history of orbital exercise.
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Comments (1)
Wow! NASA has it going on! LOL.
Looking at this I can't help to think
how acceptionally cool if people
that were non-astronauts (you know, land-lovers) could have
access to something like this as
an awesome form of physical therapy for those that are striving
hard to regain their health and strength back; maybe call it an ATB
(AN Air Therapy Box). If something
such as this already out there, I'd
like to know; or if someone is
interested in designing such, I'd be
honored to assist, as much as
possible. Who knows maybe in the
future this could cut down many
excuses for not exercising. How
cool would that be?
Posted by Evone R. on May 5,2013 | 10:20 AM