Life Sciences in the S/xuy Program 



space flight to humans and to understand the effects of countermeasures, 

 including the use of artificial gravity. 



• Spacecraft intended for extended space missions cannot be designed to support 

 human crews safely if the physiological and environmental specifications have 

 not been reliably defined. It would be inadvisable to commit to either a 

 weightless or an artificial gravity-based vehicle design before the basic reactions 

 of humans to space flight are fully understood. 



• Without appropriate life sciences research and technology programs and 

 dedicated spacecraft, inadequate subsystem design and operational scheduling 

 would likely lead to increased costs resulting from higher frequency of Shuttle 

 logistics flights, lower overall crew productivity and decreased mission effec- 

 tiveness. 



• NASA plans call for the Space Station to serve as primary test facility for long- 

 duration space research. Life sciences and microgravity science have been 

 identified as the two major users of the Space Station. 



The specific accommodations for life sciences research on the Space Station 

 remain vague. 



This uncertainty is problematic to both the life sciences and microgravity 

 science communities inasmuch as concerns have been raised that Space 

 Station research in these areas could be mutually incompatible and that the 

 projected research has not been properly addressed from the systems 

 engineering point of view. 



• The Space Station will not be appropriate for all life sciences research. In 

 addition, it may not be available for all the research that needs to be 

 performed. Many experiments, such as radiation or artificial gravity research, 

 will need to fly aboard spacecraft with mission characteristics that are 

 impossible or unfeasible to achieve with current plans for the Shuttle and 

 Space Station. 



Recommendations 



• Ground-based programs must be expanded to support research aimed at 

 extending the human presence in space. 



— Ground-based research will help develop countermeasures to prevent or 

 accommodate space adaptation during long-duration space flight. 

 Mission options using microgravity and countermeasures versus artificial 

 gravity should be researched in parallel. Results from both efforts should 

 be analyzed and used to modify one another as the feasibility and 

 efficacy of each becomes apparent. This will result in shared resources, 

 cost reduction, and a decrease in the amount of lead time needed to 

 build hardware for long-duration missions. 



Ground-based studies can help identify, quantify, and resolve human 

 factors limitations. 



lhl 



