The Medical Shuttle Mission Specialist will measure the crew's heart rates for two reasons. The first is to check for any signs of stress. That just involves the medical specialist recording each crew member's pulse from time to time. A higher-than-normal pulse may mean that the crew member is experiencing stress. Can you give reasons why the crew members may be experiencing stress? By the way, pulse is just another name for heart rate. The second reason for recording the heart rate involves an experiment to determine just how healthy the crew members are. You will need to know about the heart-rate monitors that each crew member wears. If you have not looked at it yet, read through the tutorial on the heart rate monitors. Also, you will need to know how to operate the stopwatch. For more information, go to the stopwatch tutorial. And one other thing, you have to know how the excercise is performed in the experiment. To learn more about that, go to the experiment page.
After the mission briefing, the medical specialists will record the resting heart rate of each crew member. As you may already know, the resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats during a normal inactive period, like sitting and watching t.v. Generally, that pulse is around 78 beats per minute. After the shuttle takes off and achieves orbit, each crew member will go, one at a time at some point during the mission, to the medical officer's area. Then, that crew member will sit at the chair, seen below, and will exercise on the pedal machine for one minute. AN IMPORTANT NOTE: Use your hands, not your feet, on the pedals!
After that one minute has passed, the medical officer will record the specialist's active heart rate. You guessed it, the active heart rate occurs after a period of great physical activity. The active heart rate may climb as high as 180 or more beats per minute! After all that exercise, the medical officer will observe how long it takes the specialist's heart rate to return to his/her resting heart rate. The time it takes to go from the active heart rate to the resting heart rate is an indication of a person's cardiovascular health. The faster a person returns to his/her resting heart rate, the healthier he/she is.