Chapter 14 Blood Pressure, Volume-Regulating Hormones, and Electrolytes

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the confinement experiment carried out under the Isolation Study for European Manned Space Infrastructure (ISEMSI), where three main reactions concerning blood volume regulation were observed. Confinement is certainly a good and valid method to simulate space station life (with the absence of weightlessness). Hence, it is interesting to use these confinement studies discussed in the chapter to perform biological and physiological experiments not only to obtain greater knowledge, but also to prepare and validate new scientific protocols or new scientific equipment suitable for spaceflights. During the 1960s and the early 1970s, several confinement studies were performed, which were typically isolation studies with a psychosocial orientation. ISEMSI was the first confinement protocol where European scientists were able to perform psychological and physiological experiments with a habitation and daily schedule as on a space station. The aim of the ISEMSI study was to simulate space station conditions, except that of microgravity, but including confinement, a workload consisting of experiments done inside the system, housekeeping, and communications with the outside world.