The Red and Black

When the Columbia space shuttle landed in Florida on Sunday, University Professor Chet Ray joined other scientists at NASA to conduct experiments on the astronauts.

Two hours after the shuttle touched down, Ray, an assistant professor in the department of health and human performance, began running tests on six of the astronauts.

He is working with NASA on Columbia's mission, dubbed "Neurolab," to find out why many astronauts feel lightheaded and have trouble standing after they return to earth.

Ray is one of the few people in the country who conduct "microneurography," a procedure in which a small needle is placed in the accessible nerve just below the knee. The needle measures nerve signals traveling from the brain to the blood vessels.

"This is the most important aspect of the whole data collection," Ray said. "We have been having practice sessions because everything has to be perfect."

The amount of time Ray had to get the nerve recordings on the astronauts was limited to just a few hours.

Ray has joined researchers from Germany and the United States to investigate how the nervous system responds to space flight.

The condition many astronauts experience after they return, called "orthostatic intolerance," is thought to be caused by low blood pressure and an inadequate supply of blood reaching the brain. In weightless conditions, the pull of gravity does not allow blood to reach their heads, causing them to faint or feel light-headed, Ray said. As many as half a million Americans also suffer from this condition.

"We hope this mission will help us to understand orthostatic intolerance better," Ray said.

His work with NASA began in 1995 when he was asked to determine if the astronauts being considered for the mission had good nerve activity, he said. Before last month's Columbia launch, Ray conducted pretests on the astronauts at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Ray has been in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center since early April.

"Being down here and going to the different buildings and seeing where the space shuttle is put together - it's pretty remarkable how it all works," Ray said. "This has been a unique experience."

And one experience Ray hopes will be repeated.

"I might get to do this again in the fall," he said.

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