What's the News: In long space flights, such as a mission to Mars, astronauts will have more time during which they could get injured or sick. And the same apparently goes for the medicine aboard spaceships: According to a NASA-funded study, medicines degrade faster in space than they do on Earth. As the researchers conclude in their paper, "this information can facilitate research for the development of space-hardy pharmaceuticals and packaging technologies." How the Heck:
The researchers studied outer space's effect on 35 different medications such as the infection-fighters amoxicillin and mupirocin ointment that are commonly used by astronauts by comparing boxes of drugs flown on the International Space Station with identical boxes kept in controlled conditions (same temperature and humidity) at the Johnson Space Center in Texas. One of the ISS boxes was flown in space for only 13 days and another for 28 months.
Once back on Earth, ...
