Here’s how a new sleeping bag could protect astronauts’ eyesight

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A new sleeping bag could prevent vision problems on long space missions. The invention aims to relieve pressure that builds up behind the eyes during long periods of low gravity. Astronauts experience this microgravity in space.

The high-tech sleep sack looks like a giant sugar cone and covers only the lower half of the body. The idea for it came from a technique scientists use to study blood pressure, notes Christopher Hearon. He’s a physiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He and others described their new invention in JAMA Ophthalmology on December 9, 2021.

The sleeping bag’s design aims to avoid something known as SANS. That stands for spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome. On Earth, gravity pulls fluids in the body down into the legs. But without the pull of Earth’s gravity, too much fluid stays in the head and upper body.

This extra fluid “presses on the back of the eye” and changes its shape, explains Andrew Lee. He was not part of this study. As a neuro-ophthalmologist (Op-thuh-MOL-uh-gist), he’s a medical doctor who deals with the nerves in the eye. He works at Houston Methodist Hospital and at a new Weill Cornell Medical College program. Both are in Texas.

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