In the next decade, more people will go into space than ever before as human spaceflight enters a new era. NASA, the European Space Agency, and other governmental agencies are collaborating to develop manned missions beyond the Moon. At the same time, these organizations are collaborating with private companies to use new technologies to reduce the price of space exploration.
Companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Sierra Space have developed vehicles with reusable boosters, automated flight systems and lightweight materials to support these space missions. Some even have their own ambitions to build private space stations, Moon bases or mining operations in the coming decades.
But as these technologies and partnerships make space travel more accessible, new challenges arise like maintaining the health and performance of astronauts. My team of researchers and educators at the University of Colorado and others around the world are looking to address this issue.
Emerging challenges of space medicine
NASA astronauts are some of the most accomplished people on the planet, and some of the healthiest. Astronauts go through an extensive medical and psychological screening that, in one study, rejected 26 percent of final-round applicants. This extensive screening and testing process effectively prevents the possibility of a medical incident occurring during a mission.
However, as space becomes more accessible, astronauts on commercial missions may become the majority of astronauts in the coming years. Private missions will be shorter and stay in close orbit around Earth in the near future, but private crews will have less training and chronic medical conditions than the professional astronauts currently living and working in space.
Although experiments inside the International Space Station have explored in detail the normal physiological changes that occur in the human system in weightlessness, there is no data on how common chronic diseases such as diabetes or hypertension behave in the space environment.
This industry growth is also creating opportunities for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars. Because of the mission’s length and distance from Earth, professional astronauts on these missions will experience weightlessness for long periods of time, resulting in bone and muscle loss, communication delays of a few seconds to 40 minutes, and severe isolation for months. up to years at a time. .
The crew must operate independently while facing new hazards such as lunar or Martian dust. Due to the fuel required for this mission, the resources will be limited to the lowest quantity and volume possible.
Therefore, mission planners will need to make difficult decisions to determine what supplies are truly needed in advance, with little or no access to food, water, and medicine supplies. In space, for example, radiation and humidity inside the container can cause drugs to deteriorate more quickly and become unavailable or even toxic to the crew.
Crews at the space station have access to a flight surgeon in Mission Control to help manage medical care in a similar way to healthcare on Earth. Workers on distant planets, however, will need to perform medical care or procedures independently.
In the event of a medical emergency, the crew may be unable to move to Earth. Unlike the space station, where a medical evacuation to Earth can happen in less than 24 hours, a lunar evacuation could take weeks. Rescue from Mars may not be possible for months or even years.
In short, current medical techniques in space will not meet the needs of future commercial and professional astronauts. Researchers will need to develop new technologies and new training methods to prepare future providers to treat medical conditions in space.
Current leaders in aerospace medicine are experts in aerospace engineering or medicine, but rarely do experts have formal training or a thorough understanding of both fields. And these professions often cannot speak each other’s language, literally and figuratively.
Teaching the next generation
To meet the changing needs of human space, educators and universities are looking to develop ways to train professionals who understand the limitations of the human body and the constraints of engineering design.
Some schools and hospitals, such as the University of Texas Medical Branch, have residency training programs for medical school graduates in aerospace medicine. Others, such as UCLA and Massachusetts General Hospital, have specialized training programs in aerospace medicine, but these are currently focused on fully trained emergency physicians.
My team at the University of Colorado has developed a program that combines principles of human physiology and engineering to train medical students to think like engineers.
This program aims to help students understand human health and performance in the space environment. It addresses these topics from an engineering design and constraints perspective to find solutions to the challenges astronauts will face.
One of our most popular classes is called Mars in Simulated Surface Environments. This class puts students through engineering and medical scenarios in a simulated Mars environment in the Utah desert. Students face the challenges of working and providing services in a space suit and on a desolate landscape like Mars.
The stress of the simulation can feel real to students, and they learn to use their integrated skill sets to care for their peers.
Educational programs like these and others aim to create well-rounded professionals who understand patient care and the procedural nature of engineering design and can bridge the two, whether as astronauts in orbit or as pioneers on the surface of another planet.
A new space age has arrived, and these programs are already training experts to make space accessible and safe.
This article was previously published Conversation for Arian Anderson in University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Read the original article here.
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