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		</div><p>It sounds like a code red emergency on the International Space Station – British astronaut Tim Peake shut in an airlock which is losing pressure.</p>
<p>But Major Peake willingly acted out a scene familiar from countless space movies in the name of science.</p>
<p>The idea was to simulate a low-pressure environment, such as a future lunar habitat, to see what effect it has on an astronaut’s lungs.</p>
<p>In microgravity conditions, the combination of low pressure and floating dust particles can lead to inflammation of the airways, experts believe.</p>
<p>Describing the experiment in a blog released on Twitter, Major Peake said: “Living in space is not easy on the human body.</p>
<p>“Over millions of years humans have evolved to live with gravity; take it away and our bodies adapt and cope remarkably well, but I still need to monitor almost every aspect of my health up here.</p>
<p>“One area researchers are looking at is my lungs – astronauts’ lungs may become easily irritated or inflamed if we inhale dust particles.</p>
<p>“The weightlessness makes dust more likely to get into our lungs. On Earth, dust settles on the floor, but without gravity dust never settles, which is one of the reasons we clean the space station as thoroughly as we can every Saturday.</p>
<p>“On the Moon and Mars it will be worse because, although there is gravity, it is weaker than on Earth and there is a lot more very fine dust, which also sticks to astronauts due to static electricity.”</p>
<p>He added: “The Airway Monitoring experiment is the kind of research we astronauts love. Not only do we get to use the airlock for scientific purposes – but we are also contributing to creating knowledge that will help our future colleagues explore new environments in our solar system.&#8221;</p>
<p>Also taking part in the experiment, conducted in the International Space Station (ISS) Quest module, is American Tim Kopra, who travelled into orbit with Major Peake in December.</p>
<p>Major Peake is the first British European Space Agency astronaut to be sent to an ISS mission. He is due to return to Earth in June.</p>
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