Life Sciences in the Space Program 



upon HMF requirements should be delineated quickly in case design 

 modifications are necessary for the HMF. 



• A long-term goal for the HMF should be to achieve relative autonomy of 

 operation. 



• Operational Medicine should define levels of health risk acceptable to 



NASA. 



Future Manned Spacecraft 



• NASA should implement development of a CERV for the Space Station as 

 soon as possible. 



• The NASP office should assess the biomedical aspects of the NASP design 

 and establish channels of communication with Operational Medicine. 



Information Processing 



• Operational Medicine should develop and maintain an automated medical 

 information management system before the Space Station is occupied. 

 Pertinent medical data from all astronauts should be available through this 

 system, including both inflight and ground-based longitudinal data. Once 

 long-duration missions are in progress, this system should be updated with 

 inflight medical data collected in real time. 



• Operational Medicine should develop a computer-assisted decision-making 

 system as a supplement to any HMF. Ideally, this system should be capable 

 of using the continually updated medical data base. 



Space Medicine Specialist Training 



• A physician should be included on all long-duration missions. 



• Operational Medicine must establish a training program tailored to inflight 

 medical specialists, as well as all ground-based physicians involved in the 

 projected effort. The training should include the use of HMF equipment and 

 embrace sufficient indepth clinical experience to ensure competency in both 

 health care monitoring and emergency medical situations. A curriculum in 

 space medicine with required continuing medical education credits should 

 be established for physician astronauts and flight surgeons at an appropriate 

 medical center. 



Programmatic Issues in Support of 

 Advanced Manned Missions 



• Operational Medicine should define in detail the personnel requirements 

 necessary to provide medical support for long-duration and or simultaneous 

 missions (such as Shuttle, Space Station, and Mars missions). In addition, 

 the program should address the use of on-call medical specialty consultants. 





