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NASA NTRS2007

The Apollo Medical Operations Project: Recommendations to Improve Crew Health and Performance for Future Exploration Missions and Lunar Surface Operations

Medical requirements for the future Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), advanced Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suits and Lunar habitat are currently being developed. Crews returning to the lunar surface will construct the lunar habitat and conduct scientific research. Inherent in aggressive surface activities is the potential risk of injury to crewmembers. Physiological responses to and the operational environment of short forays during the Apollo lunar missions were studied and documented. Little is known about the operational environment in which crews will live and work and the hardware that will be used for long-duration lunar surface operations.Additional information is needed regarding productivity and the events that affect crew function such as a compressed timeline. The Space Medicine Division at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) requested a study in December 2005 to identify Apollo mission issues relevant to medical operations that had impact to crew health and/or performance. The operationally oriented goals of this project were to develop or modify medical requirements for new exploration vehicles and habitats, create a centralized database for future access, and share relevant Apollo information with the multiple entities at NASA and abroad participating in the exploration effort.

Scheuring, Richard A.↗

NASA NTRS2007

The Apollo Medical Operations Project: Recommendations to Improve Crew Health and Performance for Future Exploration Missions and Lunar Surface Operations

Medical requirements for the future Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), advanced Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suits and Lunar habitat are currently being developed. Crews returning to the lunar surface will construct the lunar habitat and conduct scientific research. Inherent in aggressive surface activities is the potential risk of injury to crewmembers. Physiological responses and the operational environment for short forays during the Apollo lunar missions were studied and documented. Little is known about the operational environment in which crews will live and work and the hardware will be used for long-duration lunar surface operations. Additional information is needed regarding productivity and the events that affect crew function such as a compressed timeline. The Space Medicine Division at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) requested a study in December 2005 to identify Apollo mission issues relevant to medical operations that had impact to crew health and/or performance. The operationally oriented goals of this project were to develop or modify medical requirements for new exploration vehicles and habitats, create a centralized database for future access, and share relevant Apollo information with the multiple entities at NASA and abroad participating in the exploration effort.

Scheuring, Richard A.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

IMPACT, A Tool Suite for Crew Health and Performance System Trade Analyses and Decision Support- Transition to Operations

Mission planners, systems engineers, and clinicians that support crew health and performance face very difficult choices on upcoming exploration missions. Given that there will be a heavily constrained mass and volume allocation for a medical system on these missions, what medical capability should be manifested to minimize both medical risk and mission risk? Given that not all promising research and technology proposals can be funded, how can proposals be prioritized so that those funded research investments produce the maximum benefit in reducing overall medical risk? The Informing Mission Planning via Analysis of Complex Tradespaces (IMPACT) project seeks to answer these kinds of questions and others to support upcoming exploration missions. IMPACT enables risk-informed and evidence-based trade space analysis for future space vehicles, missions, and systems. This presentation will discuss the long-term HRP and ExMC vision for the larger ecosystem of tools, which include an updated medical database, consisting of an Evidence Library for medical conditions and a medical item database (MedID) for medical resources, dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) capabilities, System Modeling Language (SysML) models, and contextual data visualizations of output data. IMPACT is the result of a multi-center collaborative effort. The trade space analyses performed by IMPACT can directly inform mission, vehicle, and habitat development by quantifying medical risk, given a design reference mission, crew attributes and a set of medical capabilities. This presentation will update the audience on the development status of the IMPACT tool suite as it comes out of its System Acceptance Review (SAR) and nears Transition to Operations (TTO). It will review IMPACT’s constituent parts, briefly discuss typical outputs, and outline the plans for transitioning to operations, currently scheduled for later in FY24. Recent development successes on the IMPACT project include the integration of the Medical Extensible Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment Tool (MEDPRAT) v2.0 to accommodate segmented missions with multiple carriers and medical systems, full onboarding of the IMPACT Medical Database (IMPACT-MD), clustering medical resources and skills into medical capabilities and mutually-dependent bundles, verification of IMPACT-MD, and the ability to perform trade analyses on different medical sets, different design reference missions (DRM), with different crew complements and extra-vehicular activity (EVA) schedules.

IMPACT↗

NASA NTRS2008

Crew Activity Analyzer

The crew activity analyzer (CAA) is a system of electronic hardware and software for automatically identifying patterns of group activity among crew members working together in an office, cockpit, workshop, laboratory, or other enclosed space. The CAA synchronously records multiple streams of data from digital video cameras, wireless microphones, and position sensors, then plays back and processes the data to identify activity patterns specified by human analysts. The processing greatly reduces the amount of time that the analysts must spend in examining large amounts of data, enabling the analysts to concentrate on subsets of data that represent activities of interest. The CAA has potential for use in a variety of governmental and commercial applications, including planning for crews for future long space flights, designing facilities wherein humans must work in proximity for long times, improving crew training and measuring crew performance in military settings, human-factors and safety assessment, development of team procedures, and behavioral and ethnographic research. The data-acquisition hardware of the CAA (see figure) includes two video cameras: an overhead one aimed upward at a paraboloidal mirror on the ceiling and one mounted on a wall aimed in a downward slant toward the crew area. As many as four wireless microphones can be worn by crew members. The audio signals received from the microphones are digitized, then compressed in preparation for storage. Approximate locations of as many as four crew members are measured by use of a Cricket indoor location system. [The Cricket indoor location system includes ultrasonic/radio beacon and listener units. A Cricket beacon (in this case, worn by a crew member) simultaneously transmits a pulse of ultrasound and a radio signal that contains identifying information. Each Cricket listener unit measures the difference between the times of reception of the ultrasound and radio signals from an identified beacon. Assuming essentially instantaneous propagation of the radio signal, the distance between that beacon and the listener unit is estimated from this time difference and the speed of sound in air.] In this system, six Cricket listener units are mounted in various positions on the ceiling, and as many as four Cricket beacons are attached to crew members. The three-dimensional position of each Cricket beacon can be estimated from the time-difference readings of that beacon from at least three Cricket listener units

Murray, James↗

NASA NTRS1998

Crew Health and Performance on Mars

The issues surrounding the health and performance on Mars of a human crew are discussed in this presentation. The work of Human Space Life Sciences Program Office (HSLSPO) in the preparation of a crew for a Martian mission is reviewed. This includes a review of issues relating to human health and performance (HHP) in space and microgravity. The Mars design reference mission requires the most rigorous life sciences critical path of any manned mission in the forseeable future. This mission will require a 30 months round trip, with 4 different transistions to different gravities, and two episodes of high gravity load, during the Mars and Earth Aerobraking exercises. A graph is presented which shows the number of subjects with human space flight experience greater than 30 days. A chart presents the physical challenges to HHP in terms of gravity and acceleration and the length of times the crew will be exposed to the various gravity loads. Another chart presents the radiation challenges to the HHP for the duration of the trip. The human element is the most complex element of the mission design. Some challenges (i.e., human engineering and life support) must be overcome, and some issues such as bone loss, and radiation exposure must be addressed prior to making a decision for a manned Martian mission.

Stegemoeller, Charlie↗

NASA NTRS1999

ISS Propulsion Module Crew Systems Interface Analysis in the Intelligent Synthesis Environment

ERGO, a human modeling software for ergonomic assessment and task analysis, was used for the crew systems interface analysis of the International Space Station (ISS) Propulsion Module (PM). The objective of analysis was to alleviate passageway size concerns. Three basic passageway configuration concepts: (1) 45" clear passageway without centerline offset (2) 50" clear passageway, 12" centerline offset, (3) 50" clear passageway, no centerline offset, and were reviewed. 95 percentile male and female models which were provided by the software performed crew system analysis from an anthropometric point of view. Four scenarios in which the crew floats in microgravity through a 50" no-offset passageway as they carry a 16" x 20" x 30" avionics box were simulated in the 10-weeks of intensive study. From the results of the analysis, concept (3) was the preferred option. A full scale, three-dimensional virtual model of the ISS Propulsion Module was created to experience the sense of the Intelligent Synthesis Environment and to evaluate the usability and applicability of the software.

Chen, Di-Wen↗

NASA NTRS1985

Space station human productivity study, volume 1

The primary goal was to develop design and operations requirements for direct support of intra-vehicular activity (IVA) crew performance and productivity. It was recognized that much work had already been accomplished which provided sufficient data for the definition of the desired requirements. It was necessary, therefore, to assess the status of such data to extract definable requirements, and then to define the remaining study needs. The explicit objectives of the study were to: review existing data to identify potential problems of space station crew productivity and to define requirements for support of productivity insofar as they could be justified by current information; identify those areas that lack adequate data; and prepare plans for managing studies to develop the lacking data, so that results can be input to the space station program in a timely manner.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1999

Effects of Command and Control Vehicle (C2V) Operational Environment on Soldier Health and Performance

The purpose of this project was to use NASA technology to assist the US Army in the assessment of motion sickness and performance of soldiers in the Command and Control Vehicle (C2V). Three different vehicle configurations were tested: oblique, (3 seats at a 20-degree angle from the direction of travel); perpendicular, (3 seats at a 90 degree angle); and 4-forward, (all seats faced forward). In all vehicles, the front seat faced forward. Sixteen men and eight women participated for 15 days: 2 days of classroom instruction; 12 days of field tests in the C2V, and 15 minutes of post-field test performance measures. Conditions for field tests were: an initial Park; four Moves (i.e., travel over a mixed terrain); and four Short-halts following movement. NASA task batteries, mood and symptom scales, and physiological data were collected during field tests. Motion sickness symptoms ranging from slight to severe were reported for all subjects. Conclusions were: (1) there was no difference between vehicle configurations; (2) there was a negative impact on crew performance and health when subjects attended to visual screens during vehicle movement; and (3) symptoms and performance degradation were not mitigated by intermittent short-halts.

Cowings, Patricia S.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Impact, A Tool Suite for Crew Health and Performance System Trade Analyses and Decision to Support - Transition to Operations

IMPACT↗

NASA NTRS2007

Crew Exploration Vehicle Ascent Abort Coverage Analysis

An important element in the design of NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) is the consideration given to crew safety during various ascent phase failure scenarios. To help ensure crew safety during this critical and dynamic flight phase, the CEV requirements specify that an abort capability must be continuously available from lift-off through orbit insertion. To address this requirement, various CEV ascent abort modes are analyzed using 3-DOF (Degree Of Freedom) and 6-DOF simulations. The analysis involves an evaluation of the feasibility and survivability of each abort mode and an assessment of the abort mode coverage using the current baseline vehicle design. Factors such as abort system performance, crew load limits, thermal environments, crew recovery, and vehicle element disposal are investigated to determine if the current vehicle requirements are appropriate and achievable. Sensitivity studies and design trades are also completed so that more informed decisions can be made regarding the vehicle design. An overview of the CEV ascent abort modes is presented along with the driving requirements for abort scenarios. The results of the analysis completed as part of the requirements validation process are then discussed. Finally, the conclusions of the study are presented, and future analysis tasks are recommended.

Abadie, Marc J.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Feeling Well Rested and Wide Awake When it Counts

Responding to a congressional concern about aviation safety, NASA's Ames Research Center created the Ames Fatigue/Jet Lag Program in 1980 to examine the extent to which fatigue, sleep loss, and circadian disruption affect pilot performance. The program s primary research was conducted in field settings, as well as in a variety of aviation, controlled laboratory, and full-mission flight-simulation environments, to study fatigue factors and circadian disruption in short-haul, long-haul, military, cargo, and helicopter operations. In 1990, NASA changed the program s name to the Fatigue Countermeasures Group, to provide a greater emphasis on the development and evaluation of countermeasures that would mitigate the adverse effects of fatigue and maximize flight crew performance and alertness. The research conducted by this group at Ames included field studies of cockpit rest, quantity and quality of onboard sleep, and performance changes associated with long-haul flights.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1989

An empirically derived figure of merit for the quality of overall task performance

The need to develop an operationally relevant figure of merit for the quality of performance of a complex system such as an aircraft cockpit stems from a hypothesized dissociation between measures of performance and those of workload. Performance can be measured in terms of time, errors, or a combination of these. In most tasks performed by expert operators, errors are relatively rare and often corrected in time to avoid consequences. Moreover, perfect performance is seldom necessary to accomplish a particular task. Moreover, how well an expert performs a complex task consisting of a series of discrete cognitive tasks superimposed on a continuous task, such as flying an aircraft, does not depend on how well each discrete task is performed, but on their smooth sequencing. This makes the amount of time spent on each subtask of paramount importance in measuring overall performance, since smooth sequencing requires a minimum amount of time spent on each task. Quality consists in getting tasks done within a crucial time interval while maintaining acceptable continuous task performance. Thus, a figure of merit for overall quality of performance should be primarily a measure of time to perform discrete subtasks combined with a measure of basic vehicle control. Thus, the proposed figure of merit requires doing a task analysis on a series of performance, or runs, of a particular task, listing each discrete task and its associated time, and calculating the mean and standard deviation of these times, along with the mean and standard deviation of tracking error for the whole task. A set of simulator data on 30 runs of a landing task was obtained and a figure of merit will be calculated for each run. The figure of merit will be compared for voice and data link, so that the impact of this technology on total crew performance (not just communication performance) can be assessed. The effect of data link communication on other cockpit tasks will also be considered.

Lemay, Moira↗

NASA NTRS1991

Measurement and modification of the EEG and related behavior

Electrophysiological changes in the sensorimotor pathways were found to accompany the effect of rhythmic EEG patterns in the sensorimotor cortex. Additionally, several striking behavioral changes were seen, including in particular an enhancement of sleep and an elevation of seizure threshold to epileptogenic agents. This raised the possibility that human seizure disorders might be influenced therapeutically by similar training. Our objective in human EEG feedback training became not only the facilitation of normal rhythmic patterns, but also the suppression of abnormal activity, thus requiring complex contingencies directed to the normalization of the sensorimotor EEG. To achieve this, a multicomponent frequency analysis was developed to extract and separate normal and abnormal elements of the EEG signal. Each of these elements was transduced to a specific component of a visual display system, and these were combined through logic circuits to present the subject with a symbolic display. Variable criteria provided for the gradual shaping of EEG elements towards the desired normal pattern. Some 50-70% of patients with poorly controlled seizure disorders experienced therapeutic benefits from this approach in our laboratory, and subsequently in many others. A more recent application of this approach to the modification of human brain function in our lab has been directed to the dichotomous problems of task overload and underload in the contemporary aviation environment. At least 70% of all aviation accidents have been attributed to the impact of these kinds of problems on crew performance. The use of EEG in this context has required many technical innovations and the application of the latest advances in EEG signal analysis. Our first goal has been the identification of relevant EEG characteristics. Additionally, we have developed a portable recording and analysis system for application in this context. Findings from laboratory and in-flight studies suggest that we will be able to detect appropriate changes in brain function, and feed this information to on-board computers for modification of mission requirements and/or crew status.

Sterman, M. B.↗

NASA NTRS1997

The NASA Ames Fatigue Countermeasures Program: The Next Generation

Twenty-four hour, global aviation operations pose unique challenges to humans. Physiological requirements related to sleep, the internal circadian clock, and human fatigue are critical factors that are known to affect safety, performance, and productivity. Understanding the human operators' physiological capabilities, and limitations, will be important to address these issues as global demand for aviation activities continues to increase. In 1980, in response to a Congressional request, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center initiated a Fatigue/Jet Lag Program to examine the role of fatigue in flight operations. Originally established by Dr. John K. Lauber and Dr. Charles E. Billings, the Program was designed to address three objectives: (1) determine the extent of fatigue, sleep loss, and circadian disruption in flight operations; (2) determine how fatigue affected flight crew performance; and (3) develop strategies to maximize performance and alertness during flight operations.

Rosekind, Mark R.↗

NASA NTRS1999

On-Line Analysis of Physiologic and Neurobehavioral Variables During Long-Duration Space Missions

The goal of this project is to develop reliable statistical algorithms for on-line analysis of physiologic and neurobehavioral variables monitored during long-duration space missions. Maintenance of physiologic and neurobehavioral homeostasis during long-duration space missions is crucial for ensuring optimal crew performance. If countermeasures are not applied, alterations in homeostasis will occur in nearly all-physiologic systems. During such missions data from most of these systems will be either continually and/or continuously monitored. Therefore, if these data can be analyzed as they are acquired and the status of these systems can be continually assessed, then once alterations are detected, appropriate countermeasures can be applied to correct them. One of the most important physiologic systems in which to maintain homeostasis during long-duration missions is the circadian system. To detect and treat alterations in circadian physiology during long duration space missions requires development of: 1) a ground-based protocol to assess the status of the circadian system under the light-dark environment in which crews in space will typically work; and 2) appropriate statistical methods to make this assessment. The protocol in Project 1, Circadian Entrainment, Sleep-Wake Regulation and Neurobehavioral will study human volunteers under the simulated light-dark environment of long-duration space missions. Therefore, we propose to develop statistical models to characterize in near real time circadian and neurobehavioral physiology under these conditions. The specific aims of this project are to test the hypotheses that: 1) Dynamic statistical methods based on the Kronauer model of the human circadian system can be developed to estimate circadian phase, period, amplitude from core-temperature data collected under simulated light- dark conditions of long-duration space missions. 2) Analytic formulae and numerical algorithms can be developed to compute the error in the estimates of circadian phase, period and amplitude determined from the data in Specific Aim 1. 3) Statistical models can detect reliably in near real- time (daily) significant alternations in the circadian physiology of individual subjects by analyzing the circadian and neurobehavioral data collected in Project 1. 4) Criteria can be developed using the Kronauer model and the recently developed Jewett model of cognitive -performance and subjective alertness to define altered circadian and neurobehavioral physiology and to set conditions for immediate administration of countermeasures.

Brown, Emery N.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Simulator Evaluation of a New Cockpit Descent Procedure

An experiment was conducted to evaluate flight crew performance of the "Precision Descent," a new cockpit procedure designed to support the Descent Advisor (DA), one of the components in a new air traffic control advisory system called the "Center-TRACON Automation System" (CTAS). The DA predicts when aircraft will reach a specific waypoint on the arrival route, and presents controllers with clearance advisories designed to improve the sequencing of arriving aircraft. The effectiveness of the DA depends on the aircraft's descent trajectory: where it begins descent, what speed it maintains, how fast and at what altitude it crosses the bottom-of-descent waypoint. The Precision Descent allows controllers to assign these descent parameters to the flight crew. A Field Evaluation of the DA was conducted in Denver in 1995. Three separate clearances using standard ATC phraseology were used to support the cockpit descent procedure during this evaluation. The number and length of these clearances caused problems for both controllers and flight crews, causing readback errors, repeat requests and procedure misunderstandings. These observations led to a focus group meeting in which controller and pilot participants in the 1995 FE assisted in the redesign of the procedure. The Precision Descent eliminates one clearance used in the earlier study, and greatly reduces the length of the remaining clearances. This was accomplished by using non-standard clearance phraseology that relies on a published procedure chart for correct interpretation. Eight type-rated flight crews flew eight Precision Descents in a Boeing 747-400 simulator. No training was provided: crews received either a procedure chart or a procedure chart with a flight manual bulletin describing procedure techniques. Video and digital data were recorded for each descent. Preliminary results indicate that moving information from the verbal clearance to the chart was successful: the shorter clearances and the procedure's default crossing restriction were understood, and procedure compliance of 81% was observed across all descents on six independent compliance measures. Some readback errors and procedure misunderstandings were still observed, however; particularly when descent clearances deviated from the normative procedure.

Crane, Barry↗

NASA NTRS2019

Crew Autonomy Scheduling: Scheduling Performance Pilot Study

The purpose of this pilot study is to quantify crew performance in self-scheduling through Playbook, a mobile-based scheduling and planning tool. By investigating human performance within the task of self-scheduling, we can further develop countermeasures that can mitigate deficient scheduling performance, and evaluate changes as a result of these countermeasures. Moreover, this research can advise the development of standards and guidelines for autonomous crews in future missions. In human spaceflight today, the task of planning crew member’s schedules falls to Ops Planners. It takes many weeks to plan due to the complex impact each day-to-day activity can have on other activities, crew members, and resources. These impacts are measured as constraints, and these constraints can result in temporal, ordering, or resource requirements. As future spaceflight missions span longer distances and the latency of communication between the crew and Mission Control Center (MCC) increases, the need for crew members to work independently from MCC will also increase. This results in a need for crew members to be able to autonomously plan and adjust their own schedules.

planning↗

NASA NTRS2005

Autonomous Medical Care for Exploration

The goal of Autonomous Medical Care (AMC) is to ensure a healthy, well-performing crew which is a primary need for exploration. The end result of this effort will be the requirements and design for medical systems for the CEV, lunar operations, and Martian operations as well as a ground-based crew health optimization plan. Without such systems, we increase the risk of medical events occurring during a mission and we risk being unable to deal with contingencies of illness and injury, potentially threatening mission success. AMC has two major components: 1) pre-flight crew health optimization and 2) in-flight medical care. The goal of pre-flight crew health optimization is to reduce the risk of illness occurring during a mission by primary prevention and prophylactic measures. In-flight autonomous medical care is the capability to provide medical care during a mission with little or no real-time support from Earth. Crew medical officers or other crew members provide routine medical care as well as medical care to ill or injured crew members using resources available in their location. Ground support becomes telemedical consultation on-board systems/people collect relevant data for ground support to review. The AMC system provides capabilities to incorporate new procedures and training and advice as required. The on-board resources in an autonomous system should be as intelligent and integrated as is feasible, but autonomous does not mean that no human will be involved. The medical field is changing rapidly, and so a challenge is to determine which items to pursue now, which to leverage other efforts (e.g. military), and which to wait for commercial forces to mature. Given that what is used for the CEV or the Moon will likely be updated before going to Mars, a critical piece of the system design will be an architecture that provides for easy incorporation of new technologies into the system. Another challenge is to determine the level of care to provide for each mission type. The level of care refers to the amount and type of care one will render based on perceived need and ability. This is in contrast to the standard of care which is the benchmark by which that care is provided. There are certainly some devices and procedures that have unique microgravity or partial gravity requirements such that terrestrial methods will not work. For example, performing CPR on Mars cannot be done in exactly the same way as on Earth because the reduced gravity causes too large a reduction in the forces available for effective compression of the chest. Likewise, fluid behavior in microgravity may require a specialized water filtration and mixing system for the creation of intravenous fluids. This paper will outline the drivers for the design of the medical care systems, prioritization and planning techniques, key system components, and long term goals.

Johnson-Throop, Kathy A.↗