Shuttle Carried Skull to Gather Radiation Data

A human skull was carried on the recent mission of the space shuttle Atlantis to help scientists determine how much radiation penetrates astronauts’ heads when they are in space, NASA officials confirmed Friday.

The skull had been carried into orbit once previously and will be placed aboard the shuttle Discovery when it is launched next month, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

The industry magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology had reported that “the phantom head, as it is officially designated, was mounted on the right wall of the shuttle middeck near the lower end of an astronaut sleeping bag.”

For the experiment, the skull was sliced apart, filled with more than 100 instruments, reassembled and covered with a plastic material formulated to act like human skin.

Researchers needed an actual human skull to obtain the best data on how much space radiation penetrates the head, Aviation Week reported.

The 11-pound skull was launched on the last two missions, NASA spokesman Brian Welch said, because both shuttles were fired into orbits carrying them farther from the Equator than normal. In such “high inclination” orbits, astronauts are exposed to more radiation than usual.

Aviation Week said the skull was provided by the Air Force and came from someone who had willed it to science. Researchers said it was probably from a woman because of its small size.

The magazine also quoted a Johnson Space Center document as saying “it is anticipated that a full torso will be flown in future shuttle missions” to determine how much of a radiation dose the body gets during space flight. The tests would be for use in planning space station missions and lengthy stays on the moon and Mars.