Grasp and fine motoric skills in weightlessness helping prosthetic limb developments

In more than 20 experiments flown over the last 15 years on parabolic flights that offer 20 seconds of weightlessness, a team of scientists has charted how humans cope with grasping objects in space. Astronauts often perform delicate maneuvers on small objects, and calculating how living in weightlessness influences their grasp and fine motoric skills is important in an environment that allows little room for error. The work carried out on parabolic flights has paved the way for an experiment that Samantha Cristoforetti ran on the Space Station during the Futura mission. She gripped a purpose-built sensor with her eyes open and then with them closed to assess how the body adapts to situations where there is not up or down. These experiments are also helpful to engineers designing prosthetic limbs on Earth.