SEARCH · Search NASA
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
One‐year study objectives align with HRP requirements. HRP requirements include measurement panels for research and medical operations - These measurement panels are distinctly different. Instrument requirements are defined - Power, volume and mass not quite a critical limitation as for medical operations (deep space exploration missions). One‐year evaluation goals will lead HHC towards in‐flight laboratory analysis capability.
The Integrated Medical Model (IMM) is an evidence-based decision support tool used to assess medical risk and optimize medical systems for manned spaceflight missions. The IMM is baselined to the International Space Station (ISS) in terms of the spaceflight environment of low earth orbit and the ISS medical resource capability. IMPACT is the next generation evidence-based decision support tool currently under development by the Human Research Program to assess medical risk and optimize medical systems for future exploration missions to the moon and Mars. IMPACT is being designed to provide a comprehensive integrated suite of decision support tools for mission planners. This presentation will focus on the lessons learned from IMM and the enhanced functionalities of IMPACT.
The exploration and settling of Antarctica with permanent bases are used as illustrative points for establishing a permanent human presence in near-earth space. NASA activities since 1958 have spawned the computer science, solid-state electronics, medical electronics, and communications satellites industries, which are also rapidly expanding in other countries, as are space-faring capabilities. Antarctica is a paradigm for space exploration in that it is hard to reach, hostile to human life, and a great amount of planning is necessary to arrive at the destination and survive. Aircraft made permanent settlements possible on Antarctica, just as the Shuttle does for space. A space station would provide the remote base from which exploration of other planets and settling on the moon could proceed.
The risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to inflight medical conditions is among NASA’s “red” risks for Mars missions, scored at the highest likelihood and consequence on the rating scale. Importantly, this risk encompasses all possible medical conditions that might occur in spaceflight. At thesame time, exploration spaceflight will have significant resource constraints (mass, power, volume, data, etc.) and supplying the full complement of medical capabilities available on Earth will be impossible. Inevitably, medical conditions will develop during a human Mars mission and having inadequate inflight capabilities will have a negative impact on the health and performance of the astronauts, leading to adverse crew and/or mission outcomes.
Medications have been a part of space travel dating back to the Apollo missions. A safe and effective medication formulary is essential to maintaining crew health and performance during long-duration spaceflight outside of low Earth orbit (LEO). Distance from Earth creates four key operational changes that increase medical risks, including communication, resupply, crewmember health, and evacuation. The current spaceflight pharmaceutical formulary consists of medications indicated to treat a variety of anticipated medical events and healthcare needs during spaceflight, but depends on a robust consumables resupply chain, which may be strained for a Lunar, and possibly non-existent for a Mars mission. The specific medications selections for the formulary may change to optimally align with the mission, crew compliment, and spacecraft design. Medical support at long-duration exploration missions will differ from LEO missions due to mission duration, lack of consumables resupply, prolonged exposure to space radiation, and the absence of emergency medical return capability. Loss of medication resupply limits or removes the ability to replace medications that have been exhausted or degraded, potentially exacerbating the medical risk posture. To address these anticipated risks, long-duration missions must consider use of novel medical technologies, treatment modalities, and smart medical systems that offer greater crew autonomy, such as physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling, drug repurposing, on demand drug synthesis, or wearable drug delivery / monitoring devices. Once an ideal formulary for exploration space is determined, it is essential to establish the chemical and physical stability of each medication compound, as well as its safety by identifying its degradation profiles and products. Although few studies have been conducted to provide evidence on the physicochemical stability of pharmaceuticals during space missions, the data suggests that the spaceflight environment may promote degradation in some pharmaceuticals. Formulary drug purity and efficacy should be verified by pharmaceutical stability assessments, and can be realized non-destructively, and accessed in remote environments. Non-destructive pharmaceutical analysis and statistical modelling techniques could optimize exploration spaceflight medical care by enabling early detection of suboptimal therapeutics. Likewise, novel packaging, storage strategies, and dosage form innovations are promising countermeasures to optimize pharmaceutical shelf life, purity, and quality of exploration spaceflight medications. As we prepare for more distant exploration missions, risk management planning for astronaut healthcare should include the assembly of a medication formulary that is comprehensive enough to prevent or treat anticipated medical events, remains safe and chemically stable, and retains sufficient potency to last for the duration of the mission. Following extensive review of the literature, we will present innovative formulary optimization strategies, pharmaceutical stability assessment techniques, and storage and packaging solutions that could enhance drug safety and efficacy for future exploration spaceflight missions.
The US-based health care system of the International Space Station (ISS) contains several subsystems, the Health Maintenance System, Environmental Health System and the Countermeasure System. These systems are designed to provide primary, secondary and tertiary medical prevention strategies. The medical system deployed in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for the ISS is designed to enable a "stabilize and transport" concept of operations. In this paradigm, an ill or injured crewmember would be rapidly evacuated to a definitive medical care facility (DMCF) on Earth, rather than being treated for a protracted period on orbit. The medical requirements of the short (7 day) and long duration (up to 6 months) exploration class missions to the Moon are similar to LEO class missions with the additional 4 to 5 days needed to transport an ill or injured crewmember to a DCMF on Earth. Mars exploration class missions are quite different in that they will significantly delay or prevent the return of an ill or injured crewmember to a DMCF. In addition the limited mass, power and volume afforded to medical care will prevent the mission designers from manifesting the entire capability of terrestrial care. NASA has identified five Levels of Care as part of its approach to medical support of future missions including the Constellation program. In order to implement an effective medical risk mitigation strategy for exploration class missions, modifications to the current suite of space medical systems may be needed, including new Crew Medical Officer training methods, treatment guidelines, diagnostic and therapeutic resources, and improved medical informatics.
Rover trade study: As summarized recently, mission simulations at Black Point Lava Flow (Arizona) that included realistic extravehicular activity (EVA) tasking, accurate traverse timelines, and an in-loop science CAPCOM (or SciCOM) showed that a small pressurized rover (SPR) was a better mobility asset than an unpressurized rover (UPR). Traverses within the SPR were easier on crew than spending an entire day in a spacesuit, enhancing crew productivity at each station. The SPR, named Lunar Electric Rover (LER), and sometimes called the Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV), could also provide shelter during a suit malfunction, radiation event, or medical emergency that might occur on the Moon. Intravehicular activity (IVA) capabilities: From within the vehicle, crew could describe and photo-document distant features during drives between stations, as well as in the near-field, directly in front of the LER, providing an ability to begin EVA planning on approach to each outcrop prior to egress. The vehicle can rotate 360º without any lateral movement, providing views in all directions. It has high-visibility windows, a ForeCam, AftCam, port and starboard cameras, docking cameras, and a GigaPan camera. EVA capabilities: To reduce timeline, mass, and volumetric overhead, rapid egress and ingress were envisioned, replacing an airlock with lower cabin pressure than on the International Space Station and suit ports on the aft cabin wall [2]. When needed for closer inspection and sample collecting, crew could egress in about 10 minutes through suit ports. Crew use SuitCams for additional photo-documentation, transmit mobile observations verbally, and collect surface materials. Typical simulations involved 3 to 4 EVA stations/day and 2 to 3 hr/day of boots on the ground. This allowed crew to explore a far larger territory, with more complex geological and in situ resource utilization (ISRU) features, than would a single, longer-duration EVA at one location, while also minimizing crew time in a spacesuit. Additionally, the vehicle could be driven with crew locked into the suit ports. This approach could involve a driver in the cockpit with a suited crewmember in a suit port, or the vehicle could be driven from the aft deck with both crewmembers in their suit ports. This approach was used when distances between stops were short enough that vehicle ingress and egress were less efficient than remaining in the suits and driving. Utility of suit ports: The advantages of suit ports were clearly demonstrated in those field-based trade studies. To illustrate those advantages further, consider the consequences of a SPR without suit ports at the Apollo 17 landing site. At that site, the crew's second EVA was an approximately 18 km loop conducted in a UPR, called the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), in 7 hr 36 min 56 s. The traverse was composed of 5 formal stations, plus 8 additional LRV stations where crew made brief scientific stops. In a scenario involving a SPR without suit ports, crew would go EVA through an airlock and probably be limited to a single EVA per day. In that case, crew could drive the SPR ~9 km from the landing site to station 2, go EVA, and complete station 2 tasks. However, to conduct station 3 tasks, the crew would then need to walk approximately 3 km to station 3, while ground control in Houston tele-robotically drives the LER to station 3. A walk of approximately 3 km is possible, as that is what the Apollo 14 crew did before LRVs were deployed, but it is a lengthy and potentially grueling EVA. Assuming crew completes station 3 tasks, they would likely need to re-enter the SPR, ending the day's EVA, and return to the landing site. They would not be able to walk the additional distances to stations 4 and 5 (the latter being about 6 km from station 3). Thus, crew in an SPR without suit ports would require two days to accomplish the same tasks Apollo 17 crew completed in a single day. If a future crew is involved in long duration traverses on the lunar surface, the deployment of a vehicle with suit ports would probably be a better solution.
For the first four decades of human space flight NASA's priorities in life sciences and medical programs have been preventative medicine (astronaut selection and training); assessment of the physiologic effects of microgravity and other unique aspects of space flight, implementation of countermeasures to protect against adverse effects, and amelioration of these adverse effects. Because most of the U.S. space flight experience has been on short duration missions, the need for medical and diagnostic treatment capabilities have been limited.The first long-term crews will arrive on the International Space Station (ISS) in early 2000. This will usher in a new era, an era of sustained human presence in Low Earth Orbit. One of the principal purposes of the ISS program is to increase the knowledge of the effects of long duration space flight on humans, a pre-requisite to future exploration class missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (e.g., a return to the Moon or an exploration of Mars). Areas of particular interest include protection from radiation, muscle atrophy, bone loss, cardiovascular alterations, immune dysfunction, adverse psychological response to hazards and confinement, and neurovestibular alterations. In addition, long duration space flight requires the development of autonomous medical care capabilities, as the distances involved eliminate the possibility of real-time telemedicine or robotic intervention, and prevent a mission abort and a rapid return to Earth. The objectives of this presentation include: 1. A description of the International Space Station project, including its research facilities and on-orbit medical capabilities; 2. An overview of the physiological and medical problems associated with microgravity in space flight; 3. A review of NASA's biomedical research priorities and ongoing work to develop clinical care capabilities for space flight crews (including surgical interventions) and; 4. An overview of current and proposed research priorities for NASA Research Announcements, NASA Space Biomedical Research Institute, Small Business Innovation Research Grant, and other funding sources.
Data flows and storage/retrieval capacity are severely constrained during missions in space and challenges will become even greater during exploration class missions. There is a need for an artificial intelligence (AI)-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) to monitor and analyze data to provide real-time consultative support for crew medical officer (CMO) decision-making. EIMO is defined as the gradual transition of medical care and decision making from terrestrial to space-based assets, enabling support of astronaut health and performance and reducing overall mission risk. While a hallmark of this paradigm shift from low-earth orbit is that on-board care will increasingly become the responsibility of the astronauts for primary management and decision making, terrestrial assets will continue to be paramount in pre-mission screening and planning, as well as prevention, health maintenance and long-term care contingencies. New capabilities and systems that enable progressively more robust and resilient systems and crews will be necessary to reduce risk and increase probability of deep space exploration mission success. An aspiration for EIMO is to develop AI-enhanced solutions for analysis of crew health & performance data and to facilitate clinical decision support for autonomous medical operations. A “system of systems” approach is envisioned whereby EIMO will deploy AI-supported natural language processing and machine learning (ML) techniques to utilize embedded reference databases and real-time data streams [input vectors] from multiple data sources. Constituent input vectors may include environmental controls, countermeasures data, behavioral data, physiologic wearables, point-of-care laboratory tests, personalized medical records, inventory trade space risk assessments, COTS medical databases, and ground support inputs. An ideal AI capability would possess trained fusion algorithms to cross reference input vectors with medical ‘knowledge’ [cultivated database] to stratify relevant data streams for predictive and actionable capabilities. In addition, EIMO will feature mobility, in that it can be accessed and can push/pull data within and between multiple vehicles/habitats. Large amounts and variable sources of data can be leveraged to diagnose, inform treatment strategies, and potentially predict medical events and performance decrements. Inclusion of advanced training tools using extended reality will enable increasingly autonomous medical care to aid a CMO when ground support is unavailable or time-delayed beyond required action window, e.g., emergent medical situations. EIMO CDSS would require very large datasets to train pre-flight and significant amounts of data are needed to support ML via in-flight CDSS operations. An additional challenge will be to find sufficient data to train a model relevant to astronaut demographics. The rapid, accelerating evolution of this field creates a propitious solution space to leverage multi-modal AI through public-private partnership(s). The status of multi-modal AI systems today would preclude their use for long duration missions as they remain unreliable and are subject to “digital hallucinations” and other errors that could pose operational risk. A federated labs structure is being considered to test and optimize data flow from the multiple input vectors leading to field testing in suitable ground/flight analogs. Critical to the success of an EIMO CDSS will be integration and interoperability and success will be defined by a system that can serve as an in-flight medical consult for the CMO providing critical support during medical contingencies. Benefits to terrestrial medicine may be significant as an outflow of the EIMO medical system, particularly for remote areas and communities lacking significant infrastructure, personnel and resources.
Data flows and storage/retrieval capacity are severely constrained during missions in space and challenges will become even greater during exploration class missions. There is a need for an artificial intelligence (AI)-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) to monitor and analyze data to provide real-time consultative support for crew medical officer (CMO) decision-making. EIMO is defined as the gradual transition of medical care and decision making from terrestrial to space-based assets, enabling support of astronaut health and performance and reducing overall mission risk. While a hallmark of this paradigm shift from low-earth orbit is that on-board care will increasingly become the responsibility of the astronauts for primary management and decision making, terrestrial assets will continue to be paramount in pre-mission screening and planning, as well as prevention, health maintenance and long-term care contingencies. New capabilities and systems that enable progressively more robust and resilient systems and crews will be necessary to reduce risk and increase probability of deep space exploration mission success. An aspiration for EIMO is to develop AI-enhanced solutions for analysis of crew health & performance data and to facilitate clinical decision support for autonomous medical operations. A “system of systems” approach is envisioned whereby EIMO will deploy AI-supported natural language processing and machine learning (ML) techniques to utilize embedded reference databases and real-time data streams [input vectors] from multiple data sources. Constituent input vectors may include environmental controls, countermeasures data, behavioral data, physiologic wearables, point-of-care laboratory tests, personalized medical records, inventory trade space risk assessments, COTS medical databases, and ground support inputs. An ideal AI capability would possess trained fusion algorithms to cross reference input vectors with medical ‘knowledge’ [cultivated database] to stratify relevant data streams for predictive and actionable capabilities. In addition, EIMO will feature mobility, in that it can be accessed and can push/pull data within and between multiple vehicles/habitats. Large amounts and variable sources of data can be leveraged to diagnose, inform treatment strategies, and potentially predict medical events and performance decrements. Inclusion of advanced training tools using extended reality will enable increasingly autonomous medical care to aid a CMO when ground support is unavailable or time-delayed beyond required action window, e.g., emergent medical situations. EIMO CDSS would require very large datasets to train pre-flight and significant amounts of data are needed to support ML via in-flight CDSS operations. An additional challenge will be to find sufficient data to train a model relevant to astronaut demographics. The rapid, accelerating evolution of this field creates a propitious solution space to leverage multi-modal AI through public-private partnership(s). The status of multi-modal AI systems today would preclude their use for long duration missions as they remain unreliable and are subject to “digital hallucinations” and other errors that could pose operational risk. A federated labs structure is being considered to test and optimize data flow from the multiple input vectors leading to field testing in suitable ground/flight analogs. Critical to the success of an EIMO CDSS will be integration and interoperability and success will be defined by a system that can serve as an in-flight medical consult for the CMO providing critical support during medical contingencies. Benefits to terrestrial medicine may be significant as an outflow of the EIMO medical system, particularly for remote areas and communities lacking significant infrastructure, personnel and resources.
Exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit will experience significant communication delays and communication black outs that will necessitate asynchronous, increasingly Earth-independent provision of medical care to onboard crew. In this new paradigm, the Crew Medical Officer (CMO), other Crewmembers, and ground support will have to quickly, efficiently, and independently, view medical data, make decisions, and relay important information. Currently, the NASA electronic health record (EHR) is intended only for ground use and is not accessible to in-mission ISS crew for medical decision support and communication. An EHR capable of providing the crew health data, medical store-and-forward communications, and necessary medical administrative tools is critical in enabling NASA’s standard of healthcare during increasingly autonomous operations. The Exploration Medical Integrated Product Team (XMIPT) project called Medical Exploration Development and Implementation Scoping (MEDIScope) developed and reviewed objectives and concept of operations for an exploration EHR (xEHR) with project stakeholders, developed preliminary high-level requirements, and coordinated the handoff of the project to a design and implementation team at the Johnson Space Center (JSC). This JSC team will develop system requirements for the xEHR with inputs from subject matter experts. Following final requirements development, a team will be chosen to develop the xEHR and to conduct a demonstration on a future exploration vehicle such as Gateway.
Introduction The Integrated Medical Model (IMM) is a decision support tool that is useful to space flight mission managers and medical system designers in assessing risks and optimizing medical systems. The IMM employs an evidence-based, probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) approach within the operational constraints of space flight. Methods Stochastic computational methods are used to forecast probability distributions of medical events, crew health metrics, medical resource utilization, and probability estimates of medical evacuation and loss of crew life. The IMM can also optimize medical kits within the constraints of mass and volume for specified missions. The IMM was used to forecast medical evacuation and loss of crew life probabilities, as well as crew health metrics for a near-earth asteroid (NEA) mission. An optimized medical kit for this mission was proposed based on the IMM simulation. Discussion The IMM can provide information to the space program regarding medical risks, including crew medical impairment, medical evacuation and loss of crew life. This information is valuable to mission managers and the space medicine community in assessing risk and developing mitigation strategies. Exploration missions such as NEA missions will have significant mass and volume constraints applied to the medical system. Appropriate allocation of medical resources will be critical to mission success. The IMM capability of optimizing medical systems based on specific crew and mission profiles will be advantageous to medical system designers. Conclusion The IMM is a decision support tool that can provide estimates of the impact of medical events on human space flight missions, such as crew impairment, evacuation, and loss of crew life. It can be used to support the development of mitigation strategies and to propose optimized medical systems for specified space flight missions. Learning Objectives The audience will learn how an evidence-based decision support tool can be used to help assess risk, develop mitigation strategies, and optimize medical systems for exploration space flight missions.
BACKGROUND Objective Structured Clinical Evaluations (OSCEs) have long been established as a robust methodology for summative assessment of clinical skills and decision-making during medical education. The recent integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into clinical decision-making processes has prompted the need for novel evaluation frameworks to assess the efficacy and reliability of AI clinical decision support system (CDSS) tools. This abstract outlines the process of quantitatively evaluating a novel CDSS (“Doc in a Box” Google 2024) trained on curated medical spaceflight data in the psychomotor domain as it interfaces with a human volunteer acting as the crew medical officer (CMO). PURPOSE The AI CDSS under review was developed as part of the Lunar Command and Control Interoperability (LuCCI) project, which is intended to address a gap in how Lunar Surface Systems (LSS) would interoperate across multiple programs, commercial partners, and international partners. The project objective is to define, prototype, integrate, and evaluate an interoperable lunar command, control, data, and software reference architecture to enable autonomy and informatics capability through common standards across LSS. A multi-modal AI-based CDSS compatible with Federated LSS will assist clinicians in diagnosing and managing complex medical conditions by providing evidence-based recommendations through predictive analytics. Given the critical role of decision-support as NASA continues to evolve its Earth-independent medical operations (EIMO), it is imperative to ensure that such AI tools perform reliably and align with clinical standards during progressive lunar and Martian exploration class missions. METHODS The OSCE framework, traditionally used for evaluating human clinicians, was adapted to assess the AI tool's decision-making capabilities in simulated clinical scenarios. In this adapted OSCE, the AI CDSS was tested across a series of structured clinical scenarios designed to mimic real-life spaceflight patient cases. These scenarios included a range of conditions and complexities, allowing for comprehensive assessment of the tool's performance. Key evaluation metrics included accuracy of diagnosis, timeliness of decision-making, and appropriate recommendations for therapies. The OSCE was scored by human physician evaluators who assessed the AI's recommendations in comparison with expert clinicians' medical decision making to ensure alignment with best practices and the standard of care. RESULTS Preliminary results indicate that the AI CDSS demonstrated high accuracy in diagnostic recommendations and decision support across various scenarios. However, certain limitations were noted, such as occasional discrepancies in handling complex or nuanced cases that required a more contextual understanding. Additionally, the tool scored higher on the diagnostic portion of the rubric, with lower scores in the therapeutic recommendations. These findings highlight the importance of continuous refinement and validation of AI tools through rigorous evaluation frameworks like the OSCE. The adaptation of OSCEs for AI tools presents several advantages, including a structured and reproducible approach to evaluation, the ability to test AI systems in diverse clinical scenarios, and the opportunity to benchmark AI performance against established clinical standards to permit charting of future progress as aerospace medicine evolves as a discipline. Remaining challenges include ensuring that these evaluations capture the full spectrum of clinical decision-making scenarios that will be confronted by CMOs during missions and adequately reflecting real-world variability of the austere spaceflight environment. CONCLUSION Employing OSCEs to evaluate AI clinical decision support tools offers a promising approach to validating their clinical utility and efficacy. This methodology not only provides insights into the tool's performance but also fosters ongoing improvement and alignment with standard of care practices. Future research should focus on refining these evaluation processes and addressing limitations to enhance the integration of AI tools in clinical spaceflight settings. REFERENCES Scott S, Hearns V, Barker MA. Testing Clinical Skills: A Look at the OSCE and USMLE Clinical Skills Exams. S D Med. 2019 Oct;72(10):451-453. Majumder MAA, Kumar A, Krishnamurthy K, Ojeh N, Adams OP, Sa B. An evaluative study of objective structured clinical examination (OSCE): students and examiners perspectives. Adv Med Educ Pract. 2019 Jun 5;10:387-397. Karam VY, Park YS, Tekian A, Youssef N. Evaluating the validity evidence of an OSCE: results from a new medical school. BMC Med Educ. 2018 Dec 20;18(1):313.
The ability to stabilize and treat patients on exploration missions will depend on access to needed consumables. Intravenous (IV) fluids have been identified as required consumables. A review of the Space Medicine Exploration Medical Condition List (SMEMCL) lists over 400 medical conditions that could present and require treatment during ISS missions. The Intravenous Fluid Generation System (IVGEN) technology provides the scalable capability to generate IV fluids from indigenous water supplies. It meets USP (U.S. Pharmacopeia) standards. This capability was performed using potable water from the ISS; water from more extreme environments would need preconditioning. The key advantage is the ability to filter mass and volume, providing the equivalent amount of IV fluid: this is critical for remote operations or resource- poor environments. The IVGEN technology purifies drinking water, mixes it with salt, and transfers it to a suitable bag to deliver a sterile normal saline solution. Operational constraints such as mass limitations and lack of refrigeration may limit the type and volume of such fluids that can be carried onboard the spacecraft. In addition, most medical fluids have a shelf life that is shorter than some mission durations. Consequently, the objective of the IVGEN experiment was to develop, design, and validate the necessary methodology to purify spacecraft potable water into a normal saline solution, thus reducing the amount of IV fluids that are included in the launch manifest. As currently conceived, an IVGEN system for a space exploration mission would consist of an accumulator, a purifier, a mixing assembly, a salt bag, and a sterile bag. The accumulator is used to transfer a measured amount of drinking water from the spacecraft to the purifier. The purifier uses filters to separate any air bubbles that may have gotten trapped during the drinking water transfer from flowing through a high-quality deionizing cartridge that removes the impurities in the water before entering the salt bag and mixing with the salt to create a normal saline solution.
Goal:To provide human health and performance countermeasures, knowledge, technologies, and tools to enable safe, reliable, and productive human space exploration . [HRP-47051] Specific Objectives: 1) Develop capabilities, necessary countermeasures, and technologies in support of human space exploration, focusing on mitigating the highest risks to human health and performance. 2) Define and improve human spaceflight medical, environmental, and human factors standards. 3) Develop technologies that serve to reduce medical and environmental risks, to reduce human systems resource requirements (mass, volume, power, data, etc.) and to ensure effective human-system integration across exploration systems. 4) Ensure maintenance of Agency core competencies necessary to enable risk reduction in the following areas: A. Space medicine B. Physiological and behavioral effects of long duration spaceflight on the human body C. Space environmental effects, including radiation, on human health and performance D. Space "human factors" [HRP-47051]. Service projects can form integral parts of research-based project-focused programs to provide specialized functions. Traditional/classic project management methodologies and agile approaches are not mutually exclusive paradigms. Agile strategies can be combined with traditional methods and applied in the management of service projects functioning in changing environments. Creative collaborations afford a mechanism for mitigation of constrained resource limitations.
The NASA Human Research Program's (HRP) Behavioral Health and Performance Element (BHP) supports and conducts research to mitigate deleterious outcomes related to fatigue, sleep loss, circadian desynchronization, and work overload. Objective evidence indicates that within the context of the International Space Station (ISS), sleep is reduced and there is circadian misalignment. Despite chronic sleep loss and high workloads; however, astronauts successfully complete their missions. Contributing to their success is not only the tremendous skills and capabilities of each astronaut, but also the collaborative team efforts amongst the crew, between flight and ground crews, and through real‐time care provided by medical personnel. It is anticipated that risks to human health and performance will increase in the context of exploration missions, where crewmembers will venture to deep space for extended durations and in small vehicles with limited communication with home. Hence, fatigue‐related countermeasures are being developed and/or validated that include unobtrusive monitoring technologies to detect fatigue‐related performance decrements, environmental countermeasures, and sleep education and training for flight and ground crews. Given that fatigue is an issue in current ISS missions, the BHP works collaboratively with Space Medicine operations to collect data in the operational environment, to validate fatigue-related countermeasures, and provide evidence‐based mitigations. Our presentation will summarize fatigue‐related operational research that is underway through NASA's BHP in partnership with its operational counterparts. Efforts include studies evaluating the effects of hypnotics, lighting protocols as countermeasures for circadian entrainment, and investigations involving education and training. This presentation will further identify, based on flight and terrestrial evidence, additional sleep and circadian countermeasures that may still be needed to support exploration missions. Lessons learned from transitioning research deliverables into ISS operations will also be discussed.
Ionizing radiation exposure is a pervasive occupational risk to astronauts and remains a major health risk associated with human exploration beyond low-Earth-orbit. Sustained lunar and Mars exploration crew will be at increased risk of radiogenic cancers and cardiovascular disease, as well as, the potential for in-mission performance decrements, immune system decrements, and late neurodegenerative conditions impacting crew health. Optimizing astronaut space radiation protection will incorporate both physical and biological radiological aspects and will implement protection strategies that span pre-mission, in-flight, and post mission timelines. Major facets of physical risk mitigation include accuracy in predicting the space radiation solar environment, monitoring environmental and human exposures, and minimizing exposure through vehicle shielding and design. Biological mitigation facets include understanding and predicting biological response to the space environment, developing advanced medical countermeasures, and identifying appropriate surveillance strategies to preserve long-term health. Coordinated investments in these major capability areas will support development of an integrated radiation protection solution to minimize astronaut risk for moon to Mars exploration missions.
Biomedical research will be conducted during transit and on the surface of the Moon to prepare for extended stays on the Moon and to prepare for the exploration of Mars. The objective of the Human Research Program (HRP) is to preserve the health and enhance performance of astronaut explorers. Specific objectives of the HRP include developing the knowledge, capabilities, and necessary countermeasures and technologies in support of human space exploration; focusing on mitigating the highest risks to crew health and performance; and defining and improving human spaceflight medical, environmental, behavioral, and human factors standards. This document contains a detailed description of the resource accommodations, interfaces, and environments to be provided by the Constellation Program (CxP) to support the HRP research in transit and on the lunar surface. Covered, specifically, are the requirements for mass and volume transport; crew availability; ground operations, baseline data collection, and payload processing; power, and data. Volumes and mass are given for transport of conditioned samples only. They do not account for the engineering solution that the Constellation Program will implement (refrigerator/freezer volume/mass). This document does not account for requirements on the Orion vehicle for transportation to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS Program has supplied requirements for this mission.