“Space and diving are closely linked because in both areas the condition of microgravity is simulated. Thanks to these studies, over the years we have seen people with heart problems being able to resume diving, thanks to the administration of small quantities of oxygen and limiting the depth and efforts”. Thus Gerardo Bosco, president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine (Simsi) in presenting the 25th edition of the National Congress of the Society and the International Symposium of Physiology and Environmental Medicine which will meet in Padua from 2 to December 4 the biggest names in the academic, military and sports world of extreme, hyperbaric or hypobaric environments.
The Euganean city – explains Simsi in a note – is the world capital of underwater and hyperbaric medicine, thanks to its excellent teaching components, both in scientific research and in training. The University, which celebrates its 800th anniversary, hosts the Masters in Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine, as well as the Specialization School of Anesthesia, Resuscitation, Intensive and Pain Therapy and ‘Y-40* The Deep Joy’, the swimming pool spa that reaches – 42 meters, the largest underwater laboratory in the world at real depth. In the last ten years, thanks to the Atip hyperbaric chamber, the laboratories of the University of Padua, Dan Europe and Cnr Milan and the collaboration with the research laboratory in Y-40, it has been possible to almost tenfold the number of researches on underwater medicine and hyperbarism.
“In the swimming pool – continues Bosco, who is also director of the Masters in Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine in Padua – the future astronauts test the maintenance activities they will carry out in space. Space suits are basically more advanced diving suits. Before the spacewalk, the astronaut carries out 4/6 hours of pre-oxygenation, as if he were at a depth of 6 metres, to reduce the concentration of nitrogen in the tissues and avoid decompression sickness, the same that can affect the diver during non-ascents. check”.
To explain how aerophysiological training with simulations at high altitudes or even in the depths of swimming pools such as Y-40 The Deep Joy trains the performance of personnel against hypoxia and hyperoxia, reducing the risks related to the human factor and increasing flight safety will be Angelo Landolfi, Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Force, an expert in aerospace medicine, ready to leave the earth in the coming months for the first suborbital flight for civilians. “The spatial study demonstrates that many research activities in the medical and engineering fields have had repercussions on everyday life – underlines Landolfi – Through the study of microgravity it is possible to develop solutions to certain pathologies: osteoporosis, disc degeneration, muscle pathologies, chronic problems related to ageing. It also allows us to study new pharmacological therapies and new forms of physical exercise”.
In this regard, “in 2023 – adds Landolfi – the first suborbital flight with an Italian crew will be carried out, starting from the USA, with microgravity from 5 to 10 minutes, allowing experiments to be carried out more quickly and more easily attainable than the construction of experiments to be taken aboard the International Space Station. A prelude to future launches into the suborbital and then into space that will take hold, in which it is important to be present with scientific activities in order to then have repercussions on earth with so-called personalized medicine”. “Y-40 is expanding its potential as a Y-40 Open Lab research laboratory – confirms the architect Emanuele Boaretto, creator and designer of the record-breaking swimming pool. – If research on diving medicine in the strict sense has long been an integral part of swimming pool activities, its application in the field of hypobarism linked, for example, to studies on future space flights is a recent discovery that is leading to Y -40® the most important names in the Air Force, the Italian Navy and international academies”.
In addition to the Air Force, the events will involve the French Navy and the Italian Navy with the Incursori Operational Group and the Comsubin Underwater Operational Group. With them, also athletes such as the freediving world champions Umberto Pelizzari and Alessia Zecchini, Antonio Mogavero, the youngest athlete in the world to have reached, at the age of 21, the depth of -106 meters with a monofin, just returned from the world championship in Turkey with a bronze and Chiara Giamundo, first female diver of the Underwater Operational Group of the Italian Navy. The link to the complete program is https://simsi.it/congresso2022/