Word: potassium
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...most significant of Venera's revelations is that the chemical composition of at least part of the surface is similar to the earth's. Venera's gamma-ray spectrometer determined that the landing area contained radioactive potassium, uranium and thorium in approximately the same ratio in which they appear in many volcanic rocks on earth. This, in turn, indicates that Venus, like the earth, Mars and the moon, is "differentiated"; that is, the planet was once hot enough for its material to soften and flow. During this period, the heavier elements settled toward the core while...
...NASA medical men were equally impressed with the functioning of the astronauts. Suspecting that potassium loss may have been responsible for abnormal heart rates in two of Apollo 15's crew members, NASA Director of Life Sciences Dr. Charles Berry had placed the Apollo 16 astronauts on a diet rich in the essen-salt before and during their mission (TIME, May 1). The precaution appears to have paid off. None of the astronauts experienced more than minimal and predictable heart irregularities. Furthermore, postflight examinations revealed that their potassium levels were normal and that no other physical problems had arisen...
Most people lose some potassium when subjected to stress, which steps up the body's output of adrenal hormones and leads to increased elimination of the crucial salt. The astronauts, of course, go through heavy physical and emotional strain, and they face another problem as well. The weightlessness experienced in space causes the blood, which normally tends to pool in the lower extremities, to be distributed more evenly. The body senses this redistribution, reacts as if it were carrying excess fluids and attempts to redress matters by extra urination. That causes further potassium loss...
NASA's director of life sciences, Dr. Charles Berry, is unable to explain why the potassium-loss problem, which had not bothered members of earlier missions, surfaced during the last Apollo flight. But the astronauts' physician was determined not to let it become a hazard for Apollo 16. In addition to replenishing the crew's lost potassium through diet, Berry has safeguarded the spacemen by setting up an emergency cardiology service to monitor their heartbeats and transmit their electrocardiograms by telephone to two heart specialists. He has also supplied the astronauts with drugs to be used...
...hopes his precautions will make medication unnecessary. "Prescribing a cardiac drug on the lunar surface from 250,000 miles away would be a first that I would prefer to avoid," he says. But Berry hopes to score a first by learning-with greater precision than last time-how much potassium is lost by astronauts traveling and working in space. To do this, he determined the preflight potassium levels of each of the Apollo 16 astronauts. He has also asked them to bring back urine samples from a test to be conducted during the flight, and is confident that a comparison...