Insight lite: Pack your intergalactic bags
Professor Neil F. Comins
UMaine Today
Volume 8 Issue 3 – July/August 2008

The summer travel season is fast approaching. And just in case your plans include space travel, we asked University of Maine Professor of Physics Neil Comins to list 10 of the top hazards every orbiting tourist should know. Comins is the author of numerous books on space, including the most recent, The Hazards of Space Travel: A Tourist's Guide. According to Comins, the following hazards are just the tip of the "spaceberg."

· Bone and muscle mass loss

· Radiation poisoning from a solar flare or solar mass ejection

· Rapid degrading of medicines in space

· Early (i.e. soon after launch) onset of nausea

· Early inability to digest food

· Interpersonal issues among space travelers, and between space travelers and people on the ground

· Hardware failures

· Impacts from particles in space

· Claustrophobia

· Dust from surfaces of the worlds you visit