Discussion of the combined effect of weightlessness and ionizing radiation on the mammalian body: morphological data.

The combined effect of weightlessness and ionizing radiation, from the Cs137 source at 800 rads for 24 h, on the animal body was studied. The morphological examination of organs and tissues of rats flown aboard the biosatellite Cosmos-690, kept in the ground-based simulation experiment, and kept in the vivarium, indicated prevalence of radiation-induced changes in both experimental groups of rats. An exposure of animals to space flight factors did not produce a substantial aggravation of radiation-induced effects. This is indicated by the lack of significant differences in the weight of testes, thymus, and spleen of flight and simulation rats. However, this exposure affected adversely the development of reparative processes in the hemopoietic tissue of bone marrow. Inflight irradiation aggravated weightlessness-induced changes. A combined effect of weightlessness and irradiation did not result in the summation of the effects exerted on skeletal muscles by either factor alone.