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NASA NTRS2015

Risky Business

During my internship I worked on two major projects, recommending improvements for the Center's Risk Management Workshop and helping with the strategic planning efforts for Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA). The risk management improvements is the key project I worked on this semester through my internship, while the strategic planning is the secondary assignment. S&MA Business Office covers both aspects in its delegation, getting both spans some of the work done in the office. A risk is a future event with a negative consequence that has some probability of occurring. Safety and Mission Assurance identifies, analyzes, plans, and tracks risk. The directorate offers the Center a Risk Management Workshop, and part of the ongoing efforts of S&MA is to make continuous improvements to the RM Workshop. By using the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Standard for Risk Management, I performed a gap analysis to make improvements for our materials. I benchmarked the PMI's Risk Management Standard, compared our Risk Management Workshop materials to PMI's standard, and identified any gaps in our material. My major findings were presented to the Business Office of S&MA for a decision on whether or not to incorporate the improvements. These suggestions were made by attending JSC working group meetings, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) panel reviews and various risk review meetings. The improvements provide better understanding of risk management processes and enhanced risk tracking knowledge and skills. Risk management is an integral part of any engineering discipline, getting exposed to this section of engineering will greatly help shape my career in the future. Johnson Space Center is a world leader in risk management processes; learning risk management here gives me a huge advantage over my peers, as well as understanding decision making in the context of risk management will help me to be a well-rounded engineer. Strategic planning is an area I had not previously studied. Helping with the strategic planning efforts in S&MA has taught me how organizations think and function as a whole. S&MA is adopting a balanced scorecard approach to strategic planning. As part of this planning method strategic themes, objectives, and initiatives are formed. I attended strategic theme team workshops that formed the strategy map for the directorate and gave shape to the plan. Also during these workshops the objectives were discussed and built. Learning the process for strategic planning has helped me better understand how organizations and businesses function, which also helps me to be a more effective employee. Other assignments I had during my internship included completing the Safety and Mission Assurance Technical Excellent Program (STEP) Level 1, as well as doing a two week rotation through the Space Exploration division in S&MA, specifically working with a thermal protection systems (TPS) engineer. While working there, I learned about the Orion capsule and the SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule. I attended meetings to prepare the engineers for the upcoming Critical Design Reviews for both capsules and reviewed test data. Learning risk management, strategic planning, and working in the Space Exploration division has taught me about many aspects of S&MA. My internship at NASA has given me new experiences and taught me numerous subjects that I would have otherwise not learned. This opportunity has expanded my educational horizons and is helping me to become a more useful engineer and employee.

Yarbrough, Katherine↗
NASA NTRS2009

Evaluating the Impact of Land Use Change on Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Stressors in Mobile Bay

Alabama coastal systems have been subjected to increasing pressure from a variety of activities including urban and rural development, shoreline modifications, industrial activities, and dredging of shipping and navigation channels. The impacts on coastal ecosystems are often observed through the use of indicator species. One such indicator species for aquatic ecosystem health is submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). Watershed and hydrodynamic modeling has been performed to evaluate the impact of land use change in Mobile and Baldwin counties on SAV stressors and controlling factors (temperature, salinity, and sediment) in Mobile Bay. Watershed modeling using the Loading Simulation Package in C++ (LSPC) was performed for all watersheds contiguous to Mobile Bay for land use scenarios in 1948, 1992, 2001, and 2030. Landsat-derived National Land Cover Data (NLCD) were used in the 1992 and 2001 simulations after having been reclassified to a common classification scheme. The Prescott Spatial Growth Model was used to project the 2030 land use scenario based on current trends. The LSPC model simulations provided output on changes in flow, temperature, and sediment for 22 discharge points into the Bay. Theses results were inputted in the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Computer Code (EFDC) hydrodynamic model to generate data on changes in temperature, salinity, and sediment on a grid with four vertical profiles throughout Mobile Bay. The changes in the aquatic ecosystem were used to perform an ecological analysis to evaluate the impact on SAV habitat suitability. This is the key product benefiting the Mobile Bay coastal environmental managers that integrates the influences of temperature, salinity, and sediment due to land use driven flow changes with the restoration potential of SAVs.

Al-Hamdan, Mohammad↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Method for Validating Causal Diagrams of Human Health Risk in Space Flight

The complexity of cause-and-effect relationships between spaceflight hazards and resulting health conditions clouds understanding of the totality of human system risk in space. In response, NASA has introduced Directed Acyclic Graphs (causal diagrams) into the human systems risk management process. These diagrams allow for a common understanding of the mechanisms that lead from unique hazards of spaceflight to the health outcomes important to agencies and astronauts. However, the paucity of available biomedical data from spaceflight creates a need for methods of validating causal models that can accommodate data from spaceflight model analogs. Here we outline one approach utilizing open-access rodent bone datasets from the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive. The properties of directed acyclic graphs themselves can provide an epistemological and statistical framework for validation of a priori causal representations of human system risk in space flight. The assumed causal connections on the graph creates sets of logical implications: variables that – if the causal diagram is correct – should be correlated, as well as sets that should be conditionally independent. By testing these implied correlations and conditional independencies both statistically and heuristically, we can provide evidence for or against specific causal pathways on the causal diagram. In addition to validation of expert-generated causal diagrams, machine learning techniques can learn the most likely structure of a causal diagram from a given dataset. Comparison with and reconciliation between machine-learned causal diagrams and expert-generated diagrams is another technique for challenging assumptions and improving our understanding of causal mechanisms. Accurately representing complex causation is essential to systemic understanding of human health risks in space travel. Having a robust system of validating causal diagrams helps us arrive at more accurate representations of causal systems. This process will be integral to developing the countermeasures necessary for extended exploration of the moon and Mars.

Robert Reynolds↗
NASA NTRS2017

The Integrated Medical Model: Outcomes from Independent Review

In 2016, the Integrated Medical Model (IMM) v4.0 underwent an extensive external review in preparation for transition to an operational status. In order to insure impartiality of the review process, the Exploration Medical Capabilities Element of NASA's Human Research Program convened the review through the Systems Review Office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The review board convened by GSFC consisted of persons from both NASA and academia with expertise in the fields of statistics, epidemiology, modeling, software development, aerospace medicine, and project management (see Figure 1). The board reviewed software and code standards, as well as evidence pedigree associated with both the input and outcomes information. The board also assesses the models verification, validation, sensitivity to parameters and ability to answer operational questions. This talk will discuss the processes for designing the review, how the review progressed and the findings from the board, as well as summarize the IMM project responses to those findings. Overall, the board found that the IMM is scientifically sound, represents a necessary, comprehensive approach to identifying medical and environmental risks facing astronauts in long duration missions and is an excellent tool for communication between engineers and physicians. The board also found IMM and its customer(s) should convene an additional review of the IMM data sources and to develop a sustainable approach to augment, peer review, and maintain the information utilized in the IMM. The board found this is critically important because medical knowledge continues to evolve. Delivery of IMM v4.0 to the Crew Health and Safety (CHS) Program will occur in the 2017. Once delivered for operational decision support, IMM v4.0 will provide CHS with additional quantitative capability in to assess astronaut medical risks and required medical capabilities to help drive down overall mission risks.

medical equipment↗
DOE OSTI2024

OpenFacadeControl: enabling integration of automated facades with other building systems

Automated facades are, for the most part, still considered as separate from other building systems throughout the design, installation, commissioning, operation, and maintenance cycle. This takes place despite the fact that their energy and comfort performance are deeply interlinked with the operation of lighting and HVAC systems. Over the last two decades, research has shown that there are significant advantages from operating facades as an integrated system with the rest of the building. Nevertheless, significant barriers prevent this type of integration becoming more common. One of them is the lack of a platform that is inexpensive to implement and that easily allows the practical implementation of integrated control algorithms across fenestration and other building systems, using a variety of communications protocols. This is particularly challenging when automated facades are installed in existing buildings, where interaction with legacy building systems that were installed over the past lifetime of the building can require a high degree of interoperability. OpenFacadeControl (OFC) is an open-source controls framework aimed at unified control of facades and other building systems, including the sharing of third-party sensor information. Through leveraging the Volttron controls platform, it allows the integration of systems and sensors that are manufactured by different companies and that use different communications protocols into an ensemble that functions as a single system. OFC is designed to enable integrated control algorithms of varying degrees of complexity, ranging from simple, heuristic controls to more sophisticated approaches like model-predictive control. Use of a research version to test advanced lighting and shading strategies in a full-scale experimental testbed has demonstrated the ease of deploying advanced control solutions using OpenFacadeControl. This paper presents the structure of OpenFacadeControl and a demonstration case showing the use of OFC in laboratory tests of advanced lighting and fenestration controls that coordinated motorized shades communicating via the BACnet building communications standard and lights communicating via internet-protocol-based application programming interface (API), based on the readings of a shared light level sensor communicating via a different API.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2022

Gatlinburg & Beatty Wildfires: Evaluating the Role of Soil Moisture in Determining Vegetation Health, Fuel Loads, and Wildfires in the Gatlinburg and Beatty Wildfires

Wildfire potential monitoring, which is increasingly vital under climate change-induced droughts, could be improved by incorporating remotely-sensed soil moisture data. To better understand the connections between soil moisture and vegetation health, stakeholders are interested in using soil moisture data in the development of fire-related indices. NASA DEVELOP partnered with the Desert Research Institute’s Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), the North Carolina State Climate Office, and Oklahoma State University to evaluate how measures of remotely-sensed standardized soil moisture compare to vegetation health and fire fuel indices in a case study of two fire events: the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 Fire near Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the 2021 Bootleg Fire near Beatty, Oregon. The team visualized vegetation change six months prior to each event using spectral vegetation indices observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite and the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI). These visualizations were compared to soil moisture data from European Space Agency's (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Soil Moisture (CCI SM) project, collected in part by the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite. Overall, period of record percentiles and fraction of available water standardizations correlated more strongly with fuel load and vegetation indices, indicating their utility for fire potential monitoring. Soil moisture conditions remained exceptionally dry for several months before the Chimney Tops 2 Fire whereas drought conditions only intensified immediately prior to the Bootleg Fire. This indicates greater sensitivity to drought conditions under Western fire regimes. These findings will inform partners’ monitoring of wildfire potential in both regions and development of early warning systems.

soil moisture↗
NASA NTRS2004

Strategy Developed for Selecting Optimal Sensors for Monitoring Engine Health

Sensor indications during rocket engine operation are the primary means of assessing engine performance and health. Effective selection and location of sensors in the operating engine environment enables accurate real-time condition monitoring and rapid engine controller response to mitigate critical fault conditions. These capabilities are crucial to ensure crew safety and mission success. Effective sensor selection also facilitates postflight condition assessment, which contributes to efficient engine maintenance and reduced operating costs. Under the Next Generation Launch Technology program, the NASA Glenn Research Center, in partnership with Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power, has developed a model-based procedure for systematically selecting an optimal sensor suite for assessing rocket engine system health. This optimization process is termed the systematic sensor selection strategy. Engine health management (EHM) systems generally employ multiple diagnostic procedures including data validation, anomaly detection, fault-isolation, and information fusion. The effectiveness of each diagnostic component is affected by the quality, availability, and compatibility of sensor data. Therefore systematic sensor selection is an enabling technology for EHM. Information in three categories is required by the systematic sensor selection strategy. The first category consists of targeted engine fault information; including the description and estimated risk-reduction factor for each identified fault. Risk-reduction factors are used to define and rank the potential merit of timely fault diagnoses. The second category is composed of candidate sensor information; including type, location, and estimated variance in normal operation. The final category includes the definition of fault scenarios characteristic of each targeted engine fault. These scenarios are defined in terms of engine model hardware parameters. Values of these parameters define engine simulations that generate expected sensor values for targeted fault scenarios. Taken together, this information provides an efficient condensation of the engineering experience and engine flow physics needed for sensor selection. The systematic sensor selection strategy is composed of three primary algorithms. The core of the selection process is a genetic algorithm that iteratively improves a defined quality measure of selected sensor suites. A merit algorithm is employed to compute the quality measure for each test sensor suite presented by the selection process. The quality measure is based on the fidelity of fault detection and the level of fault source discrimination provided by the test sensor suite. An inverse engine model, whose function is to derive hardware performance parameters from sensor data, is an integral part of the merit algorithm. The final component is a statistical evaluation algorithm that characterizes the impact of interference effects, such as control-induced sensor variation and sensor noise, on the probability of fault detection and isolation for optimal and near-optimal sensor suites.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2016

Characterization of Evidence for Human System Risk Assessment

Understanding the kinds of evidence available and using the best evidence to answer a question is critical to evidenced-based decision-making, and it requires synthesis of evidence from a variety of sources. Categorization of human system risks in spaceflight, in particular, focuses on how well the integration and interpretation of all available evidence informs the risk statement that describes the relationship between spaceflight hazards and an outcome of interest. A mature understanding and categorization of these risks requires: 1) sufficient characterization of risk, 2) sufficient knowledge to determine an acceptable level of risk (i.e., a standard), 3) development of mitigations to meet the acceptable level of risk, and 4) identification of factors affecting generalizability of the evidence to different design reference missions. In the medical research community, evidence is often ranked by increasing confidence in findings gleaned from observational and experimental research (e.g., "levels of evidence"). However, an approach based solely on aspects of experimental design is problematic in assessing human system risks for spaceflight. For spaceflight, the unique challenges and opportunities include: (1) The independent variables in most evidence are the hazards of spaceflight, such as space radiation or low gravity, which cannot be entirely duplicated in terrestrial (Earth-based) analogs, (2) Evidence is drawn from multiple sources including medical and mission operations, Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health (LSAH), spaceflight research (LSDA), and relevant environmental & terrestrial databases, (3) Risk metrics based primarily on LSAH data are typically derived from available prevalence or incidence data, which may limit rigorous interpretation, (4) The timeframe for obtaining adequate spaceflight sample size (n) is very long, given the small population, (5) Randomized controlled trials are unattainable in spaceflight, (6) Collection of personal and environmental data on the astronaut population may create opportunities for advanced analytics and human-environment modeling that goes beyond that achieved in isolated experimental designs; and (7) Translation of relevant research to operations is a complex, transdisciplinary enterprise in which the approach must apply across the physical, biological, behavioral, and social sciences. The approach to synthesizing evidence must address both source and fidelity of data, and reflect the most general attributes of quality of evidence in science and engineering: reliability and validity. The authors are developing a two-factor approach which includes the various kinds of evidence required to understand risks and for the integrated interpretation of all evidence that is essential to develop standards and countermeasures. A unified framework for aggregating and assessing different kinds of evidence provides a consistent, traceable, evidence-based decision-making process to translate research to operations in an environment where engineers, scientists, physicians, and managers all engage in analyzing the trade space of vehicle design, standards, requirements and solutions for spaceflight.

Steinberg, S. L.↗
NASA NTRS2008

International Space Station Medical Operations

NASA is currently the leader, in conjunction with our Russian counterpart co-leads, of the Multilateral Medical Policy Board (MMPB), the Multilateral Medical Operations Panel (MMOP), which coordinates medical system support for International Space Station (ISS) crews, and the Multilateral Space Medicine Board (MSMB), which medically certifies all crewmembers for space flight on-board the ISS. These three organizations have representatives from NASA, RSA-IMBP (Russian Space Agency- Institute for Biomedical Problems), GCTC (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center), ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japanese Space Agency), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The policy and strategic coordination of ISS medical operations occurs at this level, and includes interactions with MMOP working groups in Radiation Health, Countermeasures, Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA), Informatics, Environmental Health, Behavioral Health and Performance, Nutrition, Clinical Medicine, Standards, Post-flight Activities and Rehabilitation, and Training. Each ISS Expedition has a lead Crew Surgeon from NASA and a Russian Crew Surgeon from GCTC assigned to the mission. Day-to-day issues are worked real-time by the flight surgeons and biomedical engineers (also called the Integrated Medical Group) on consoles at the MCC (Mission Control Center) in Houston and the TsUP (Center for Flight Control) in Moscow/Korolev. In the future, this may also include mission control centers in Europe and Japan, when their modules are added onto the ISS. Private medical conferences (PMCs) are conducted regularly and upon crew request with the ISS crew via private audio and video communication links from the biomedical MPSR (multipurpose support room) at MCC Houston. When issues arise in the day-to-day medical support of ISS crews, they are discussed and resolved at the SMOT (space medical operations team) meetings, which occur weekly among the International Partners. Any medical or life science issue that is not resolved at the SMOT can be taken to the Mission Management Team meeting, which occurs biweekly from MCC-Houston. This meeting includes the other International Partners and all flight support and console position representatives via teleconference. ISS Crew Surgeons have handled many medical conditions on orbit; including skin rashes, dental abscesses, lacerations, and STT segment EKG changes. Fortunately to date, there have not been any forced medical evacuations from the ISS. This speaks well for the implementation of the primary, secondary and even tertiary prevention strategies invoked by the Integrated Medical Group, as there were several medical evacuations during the previous Russian space stations.

Jones, Jeffrey A.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Revitalization of Space-Related Human Factors, Environmental and Habitability Data

The NASA Chief Health and Medical Officer (CHMO) recently directed that the agency establish crew health standards to aid in the development of requirements for future vehicles and habitats. Response to this direction includes development of a new NASA habitability and human factors standard and an accompanying design handbook. The new standard contains high-level, over-arching principles to assure its applicability and usability across all NASA development programs. The handbook will provide detailed design requirements and suggestions that will meet the standards. The information contained in NASA-STD-3000 will be updated and included in the new design handbook. In this approach, each new program will derive detailed program-specific requirements from the new standard using the handbook as a design guide and resource. With the completion of the standard, the focus of this year s effort is the development of the new handbook: Human Integration Design Handbook (HIDH). This is an opportunity for the space flight human factors and habitability community to consolidate up-to-date data for use by NASA programs and designers as well as outside researchers and policy makers looking for the next research focus. The goal of the handbook is to help NASA design and build human space flight systems which accommodate the capabilities and limitations of the crew so as to provide an environment where the crew can live and work effectively, safely, and comfortably. Handbook contents will address that primary goal, addressing unique aspects of space flight and habitation, including reduced gravity conditions, time lags, EVA systems and day/night cycles, not addressed in other standards or handbooks. The handbook will be divided into topics similar to NASA-STD-3000 (anthropometrics, architecture, workstations, etc.) and each topic area will contain elements for designers, human factors practitioners, program managers, operators, and researchers. The handbook will include the following elements: (1) Design considerations include a clear and concise summary of what is important to designers in space vehicle / habitat design, design information to translate Earth-base knowledge to the space environment, space issues and the data necessary to address those issues, and a consistent set of terminology. (2) Updates to Lessons Learned and example solutions from Shuttle and Station program experience will provide historical examples to help prevent repeating mistakes or reinvention of the wheel. (3) Requirements will aid in the translation of standards into program specific requirements. The scope of included requirements will define the pool that each program needs to consider and tailor for their specific program. (4) Requirements rationale will help understanding of the importance of these considerations. The HIDH development team at JSC is finalizing the format of the new handbook, prioritizing topic areas for expansion and update, and contacting subject matter experts within the scientific community to assist with this effort. Plans are also being made to continue handbook expansion and maintenance to assure it remains a valuable resource for human factors and human space flight programs.

Russo, Dane↗
NASA NTRS2010

Visual Impairment/Intracranial Pressure Risk Assessment

Since 2006 there have been 6 reported cases of altered visual acuity and intracranial pressure (ICP) in long duration astronauts. In order to document this risk and develop an integrated approach to its mitigation, the NASA Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) and Human Research Program (HRP) have chosen to use the Human System Risk Board (HSRB) and the risk management analysis tool (RMAT). The HSRB is the venue in which the stakeholders and customers discuss and vet the evidence and the RMAT is the tool that facilitates documentation and comparison of the evidence across mission profiles as well as identification of risk factors, and documentation of mitigation strategies. This process allows for information to be brought forward and dispositioned so that it may be properly incorporated into the RMAT and contribute to the design of the research and mitigation plans. The evidence thus far has resulted in the identification of a visual impairment/intracranial pressure (VIIP) project team, updating of both short and long duration medical requirements designed to assess visual acuity, and a research plan to characterize this issue further. In order to understand this issue more completely, a plan to develop an Accelerated Research Collaboration (ARC) has been approved by the HSRB. The ARC is a novel research model pioneered by the Myelin Repair Foundation. It is a patient centered research model that brings together researchers and clinicians, under the guidance of a scientific advisory panel, to collaborate and produce results much quickly than accomplished through traditional research models. The data and evidence from the updated medical requirements and the VIIP ARC will be reviewed at the HSRB on a regular basis. Each review package presented to the HSRB will include an assessment and recommendation with respect to continuation of research, countermeasure development, occupational surveillance modalities, selection criteria, etc. This process will determine the course of the VIIP project and ultimately how SLSD and HRP mitigate this emerging human health and performance risk.

Fogarty, Jennifer A.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Managing Space Radiation Risks On Lunar and Mars Missions: Risk Assessment and Mitigation

Radiation-induced health risks are a primary concern for human exploration outside the Earth's magnetosphere, and require improved approaches to risk estimation and tools for mitigation including shielding and biological countermeasures. Solar proton events are the major concern for short-term lunar missions (<60 d), and for long-term missions (>60 d) such as Mars exploration, the exposures to the high energy and charge (HZE) ions that make-up the galactic cosmic rays are the major concern. Health risks from radiation exposure are chronic risks including carcinogenesis and degenerative tissue risks, central nervous system effects, and acute risk such as radiation sickness or early lethality. The current estimate is that a more than four-fold uncertainty exists in the projection of lifetime mortality risk from cosmic rays, which severely limits analysis of possible benefits of shielding or biological countermeasure designs. Uncertainties in risk projections are largely due to insufficient knowledge of HZE ion radiobiology, which has led NASA to develop a unique probabilistic approach to radiation protection. We review NASA's approach to radiation risk assessment including its impact on astronaut dose limits and application of the ALARA (As Low as Reasonably Achievable) principle. The recently opened NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) provides the capability to simulate the cosmic rays in controlled ground-based experiments with biological and shielding models. We discuss how research at NSRL will lead to reductions in the uncertainties in risk projection models. In developing mission designs, the reduction of health risks and mission constraints including costs are competing concerns that need to be addressed through optimization procedures. Mitigating the risks from space radiation is a multi-factorial problem involving individual factors (age, gender, genetic makeup, and exposure history), operational factors (planetary destination, mission length, and period in the solar cycle), and shielding characteristics (materials, mass, and topology). We review optimization metrics for radiation protection including scenarios that integrate biophysics models of radiation risks, operational variables, and shielding design tools needed to assess exploration mission designs. We discuss the application of a crosscutting metric, based on probabilistic risk assessment, to lunar and Mars mission trade studies including the assessment of multi-factorial problems and the potential benefits of new radiation health research strategies or mitigation technologies.

Cucinotta, F. A.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Managing Space Radiation Risks on Lunar and Mars Missions: Risk Assessment and Mitigation

Radiation-induced health risks are a primary concern for human exploration outside the Earth's magnetosphere, and require improved approaches to risk estimation and tools for mitigation including shielding and biological countermeasures. Solar proton events are the major concern for short-term lunar missions (<60 d), and for long-term missions (>60 d) such as Mars exploration, the exposures to the high energy and charge (HZE) ions that make-up the galactic cosmic rays are the major concern. Health risks from radiation exposure are chronic risks including carcinogenesis and degenerative tissue risks, central nervous system effects, and acute risk such as radiation sickness or early lethality. The current estimate is that a more than four-fold uncertainty exists in the projection of lifetime mortality risk from cosmic rays, which severely limits analysis of possible benefits of shielding or biological countermeasure designs. Uncertainties in risk projections are largely due to insufficient knowledge of HZE ion radiobiology, which has led NASA to develop a unique probabilistic approach to radiation protection. We review NASA's approach to radiation risk assessment including its impact on astronaut dose limits and application of the ALARA (As Low as Reasonably Achievable) principle. The recently opened NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) provides the capability to simulate the cosmic rays in controlled ground-based experiments with biological and shielding models. We discuss how research at NSRL will lead to reductions in the uncertainties in risk projection models. In developing mission designs, the reduction of health risks and mission constraints including costs are competing concerns that need to be addressed through optimization procedures. Mitigating the risks from space radiation is a multi-factorial problem involving individual factors (age, gender, genetic makeup, and exposure history), operational factors (planetary destination, mission length, and period in the solar cycle), and shielding characteristics (materials, mass, and topology). We review optimization metrics for radiation protection including scenarios that integrate biophysics models of radiation risks, operational variables, and shielding design tools needed to assess exploration mission designs. We discuss the application of a crosscutting metric, based on probabilistic risk assessment, to lunar and Mars mission trade studies including the assessment of multi-factorial problems and the potential benefits of new radiation health research strategies or mitigation technologies.

Cucinotta, F. A.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Managing Space Radiation Risks on Lunar and Mars Missions: Risk Assessment and Mitigation

Radiation-induced health risks are a primary concern for human exploration outside the Earth's magnetosphere, and require improved approaches to risk estimation and tools for mitigation including shielding and biological countermeasures. Solar proton events are the major concern for short-term lunar missions (<60 d), and for long-term missions (>60 d) such as Mars exploration, the exposures to the high energy and charge (HZE) ions that make-up the galactic cosmic rays are the major concern. Health risks from radiation exposure are chronic risks including carcinogenesis and degenerative tissue risks, central nervous system effects, and acute risk such as radiation sickness or early lethality. The current estimate is that a more than four-fold uncertainty exists in the projection of lifetime mortality risk from cosmic rays, which severely limits analysis of possible benefits of shielding or biological countermeasure designs. Uncertainties in risk projections are largely due to insufficient knowledge of HZE ion radiobiology, which has led NASA to develop a unique probabilistic approach to radiation protection. We review NASA's approach to radiation risk assessment including its impact on astronaut dose limits and application of the ALARA (As Low as Reasonably Achievable) principle. The recently opened NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) provides the capability to simulate the cosmic rays in controlled ground-based experiments with biological and shielding models. We discuss how research at NSRL will lead to reductions in the uncertainties in risk projection models. In developing mission designs, the reduction of health risks and mission constraints including costs are competing concerns that need to be addressed through optimization procedures. Mitigating the risks from space radiation is a multi-factorial problem involving individual factors (age, gender, genetic makeup, and exposure history), operational factors (planetary destination, mission length, and period in the solar cycle), and shielding characteristics (materials, mass, and topology). We review optimization metrics for radiation protection including scenarios that integrate biophysics models of radiation risks, operational variables, and shielding design tools needed to assess exploration mission designs. We discuss the application of a crosscutting metric, based on probabilistic risk assessment, to lunar and Mars mission trade studies including the assessment of multi-factorial problems and the potential benefits of new radiation health research strategies or mitigation technologies.

Cucinotta, F. A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Spaceflight Biospecimen and Data Sharing in Support of Science Discovery and Exploration

For decades, NASA and international partners have conducted biological experiments in space to understand effects of spaceflight and address potential hazards. To enable spaceflight back to the Moon, and then to Mars and beyond, it is imperative to further understand basic science and health risks associated with spaceflight, along with developing countermeasures. The sending of experiments and organisms into space is a costly endeavor. To maximize scientific return, sharing with the scientific community both space-flown biospecimens and data from completed experiments is essential. New fundamental, applied, and bioinformatic science insights can be gained from specimen and data sharing efforts. Data reuse enables spaceflight health risk modeling, analyzing adverse outcomes across spaceflight hazards, and deep space autonomous support for the flight medical officer. Space-flown biospecimens not required by mission Principal Investigators are regularly archived and made available for scientific request. The largest biorepository of these samples are found within NASA’s Institutional Scientific Collection at Ames Research Center (ISC-ARC), which stores over 32,000 specimens mostly from Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) missions, but also some ground-based analog samples. The Ames Life Sciences Data Archive manages the ISC-ARC. Tissues are predominantly from mice and rats, though samples are also available from bacteria and quail. Only a handful of other similar collections exist worldwide. Rodent biospecimens exposed to simulated space radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory are archived under the purview of NASA HRP Space Radiation Element. Microbial collection and analyses from 20 years of routine environmental monitoring of air, surfaces, and water systems of the ISS were performed to ensure a safe environment for astronauts. Samples from the ISC-ARC, space radiation and microbial collections are searchable and requestable through the NASA Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA). Decades of planetary protection microbial isolates derived from spacecraft bioburden are archived in JPL’s microbial collection. Rodent biospecimens from spaceflight investigations conducted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are archived and available at the JAXA Biorepository at Tsukuba Space Center. The Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems also has a collection of animal, microbial, cellular, and fungi available for research from ground analog experiments. Several data repositories exist for scientists to utilize. The LSDA is the primary NASA source of life sciences research data and information. It contains decades of spaceflight and ground-analog research involving human, microbial, cellular, plant, and animal subjects. Data is collected from NASA-funded investigations through the Human Research Program and the Space Biology Program. The NASA Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health collects and grants access to clinical and occupational health monitoring data from astronauts, with a list and description of data collected available for request through the LSDA. NASA GeneLab at ARC collects genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data from any species. It is a repository and platform for collaborative open-science bioinformatic approaches. JAXA is establishing an ‘omics-based repository in collaboration with the Tohoku Medical Megabank (ToMMo), called the JAXA-ToMMo Integrated Biobank for Space Life Science. Overall, the sharing of these biospecimen and data resources can assist researchers worldwide in understanding spaceflight effects on biology, along with enabling next generation data science applications for space exploration platforms. Websites: https://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/ ; https://www.nasa.gov/ames/research/space-biosciences/isc-bsp ; https://www.nasa.gov/ames/research/space-biosciences/alsda

Ryan T. Scott↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Datascope to Enable Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO)

BACKGROUND: NASA has amassed sixty years of knowledge and experience relevant to maintenance of crew health and performance in low earth orbit. The Apollo Program introduced the importance of ensuring progressively autonomous operational capability. Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO) will require a gradual shift in the balance of medical responsibility, management, and authority from terrestrial to space-based assets. Terrestrial assets will continue to be essential for pre-mission screening and planning in addition to maintenance of crew health and performance. However, new capabilities are needed to enable EIMO and the amount of data required to support these systems, and mitigate the impacts of data transmission delays and reduced bandwidth coupled with lack of cloud-like resources and on-board computing capacity that is currently unclear or operationally insufficient. OVERVIEW: The overall goal of EIMO is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions to analyze crew health and performance data utilizing a clinical decision support system (CDSS) to provide crew medical officers (CMO) with the equivalent of real-time, on-board medical consults. The EIMO ecosystem is envisioned as a “system of systems” where embedded reference databases and real-time data streams from multiple input vectors continuously and seamlessly assess crew health and performance. EIMO will be designed to make recommendations to the CMO using multi-modal AI-based natural language processing and machine learning methods with interoperability to push/pull data within and between multiple vehicle and habitat architectures. DISCUSSION: Data flows and storage/retrieval capacity are severely constrained during space missions and the challenges will become even greater during exploration missions. Just as each past program from Mercury to the International Space Station (ISS) required rethinking the interaction between ground-based controllers and space-based crew, so too will future missions to the Moon and Mars. While the NASA High-Performance Spaceflight Computing Processor project aims to increase computational capacity by 100 times over current spaceflight computers, the projected deliverable still lags considerably behind what will be needed to enable an AI-driven CDSS. Restrictions in processing speed and data storage capacity, coupled with transmission bottlenecks and delays, necessitate definition and optimization of an integrated data architecture to enable a progressively autonomous medical capability.

Medical operations↗
NASA NTRS2009

The Radio Frequency Health Node Wireless Sensor System

The Radio Frequency Health Node (RFHN) wireless sensor system differs from other wireless sensor systems in ways originally intended to enhance utility as an instrumentation system for a spacecraft. The RFHN can also be adapted to use in terrestrial applications in which there are requirements for operational flexibility and integrability into higher-level instrumentation and data acquisition systems. As shown in the figure, the heart of the system is the RFHN, which is a unit that passes commands and data between (1) one or more commercially available wireless sensor units (optionally, also including wired sensor units) and (2) command and data interfaces with a local control computer that may be part of the spacecraft or other engineering system in which the wireless sensor system is installed. In turn, the local control computer can be in radio or wire communication with a remote control computer that may be part of a higher-level system. The remote control computer, acting via the local control computer and the RFHN, cannot only monitor readout data from the sensor units but can also remotely configure (program or reprogram) the RFHN and the sensor units during operation. In a spacecraft application, the RFHN and the sensor units can also be configured more nearly directly, prior to launch, via a serial interface that includes an umbilical cable between the spacecraft and ground support equipment. In either case, the RFHN wireless sensor system has the flexibility to be configured, as required, with different numbers and types of sensors for different applications. The RFHN can be used to effect realtime transfer of data from, and commands to, the wireless sensor units. It can also store data for later retrieval by an external computer. The RFHN communicates with the wireless sensor units via a radio transceiver module. The modular design of the RFHN makes it possible to add radio transceiver modules as needed to accommodate additional sets of wireless sensor units. The RFHN includes a core module that performs generic computer functions, including management of power and input, output, processing, and storage of data. In a typical application, the processing capabilities in the RFHN are utilized to perform preprocessing, trending, and fusion of sensor data. The core module also serves as the unit through which the remote control computer configures the sensor units and the rest of the RFHN.

Valencia, J. Emilio↗
NASA NTRS2009

The Crop Evaluation Research for Environmental Strategies (CERES) Remote Sensing 2008 Project Activities

In recent years, the use of Plant Incorporated Protectant (PIP) corn by American producers has been increasing dramatically. PIP corn contains genetically inserted traits that produce toxins in the plant that provide narrowly targeted protection against specific insect pests. The plant producing t oxms can offer significant reductions in the application of broad -spectrum pesticides that have ecological and human health consequences. PIP corn as a percentage of total corn acreage planted in the US is expected to continue to increase as these protective traits are "stacked" with other desirable traits by seed companies, and producers are seeing considerable increases in corn yield as a result. The introduction of corn as a bio-fuel source for ethanol has increased production by over 6 million hectares in 2007. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), which is responsible for the registration of PIP crops under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, views the use of PIP corn as positive. Broad spectrum pesticide use has declined since the PIP traits have been introduced. As the agricultural landscape sees a higher percentage of corn acres using the PIP technology, the risk of the targeted insect pest populations developing resistance to the toxins, thereby rendering the in will increase as well. This result would negate the effectiveness of the PIP corn traits and could reduce production of a US field corn crop valued at $33 billion dollars in 2006 and place US food and now energy security at risk. Concerns over insect pest resistance development to PIP traits have led the USEPA to team with NASA and the Institute for Technology Development (ITD) to develop geo-spatial technologies designed to proactively monitor the corn production landscape for insect pest infestation and possible resistance development. USEPA resistance management simulation models are combined with NASA remote sensi ng products to monitor the corn landscape for resistance development. The two agencies have entered into an agreement which could potentially lead to the development of next generation NASA sensors that will more specifically address the requirements of the USEPA's resistance development strategy and offer opportunities to study the ever changing ecosystem complexities. The USEPA/NASA/ITD team has developed a broad research project entitled CERES (Crop Evaluation Research for Environmental Strategies). CERES is a research effort leading to decision support system tools that are designed to integrate multi-resolution NASA remote sensing data products and USEPA geo -spatial models to monitor the potential for insect pest resistance development from the regional to the landscape and then to the field level.

Casas, Joseph C.↗