A. Human Health & Performance challenges
B. Human Health & Performance technologies
C. Human Health & Performance capabilities
D. Human Research Program Roadmap
E. NASA Space Technology Roadmaps
A. Human Health & Performance Top Challenges:
From website:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/slsd/innovation/challenges.html
Challenge: Digital Astronaut - Model of Physiologic Simulations of Exposure to Microgravity
Renata Ramos – physiology expertise
John Clark – simulation expertise
Michael Deem – simulation expertise
Oleg Igoshin – simulation expertise
NASA seeks to develop a model capable of a wide range of physiologic simulations of exposure to microgravity over various time periods and environmental circumstances, engaging multiple physiologic systems, resulting in the most detailed systems analysis of human spaceflight available. This model, called Digital Astronaut, will be validated for both qualitative and quantitative accuracy by comparison to existing datasets of astronaut physiology using standard techniques for this type of analysis. A continuing incorporation of information from current space biomedical knowledge bases and literature into the model framework with a maturation of the microgravity specific elements of the model is desired. Specific attention should be focused on those biologic elements needed to complete a simulation of the functional task tests.
The Digital Astronaut will serve as a practical working tool for use by NASA in operational activities such as the prediction of biomedical risks and functional capabilities of astronauts participating in long duration missions. The basic backbone model contains over 5000 equations of biologic interactions and encompasses a variety of special physiologic processes of interest to humans during spaceflight including cardiovascular functioning and adaptations during spaceflight, muscle metabolism, neurohormonal adaptations to microgravity, and general nutritional and metabolic mass balance. The model software interface is designed to provide simple interaction of a desktop with a mainframe and will allow scientists to perform complex systems analysis and theoretical hypothesis testing on specific questions regarding human exposure to microgravity.
Challenge: In-flight Imaging System
Tomasz Tkaczyk – imaging expertise
Rebecca Richards-Kortum – imaging expertise
Rebekah Drezek– imaging expertise
Tony Mikos – bone expertise
Jane Grande-Allen – cardiovascular expertise
Jeff Jacot – cardiovascular expertise
Rob Raphael – ENT expertise
NASA needs in-flight topical and internal imaging systems to diagnose pathologies for adequate treatment of an ill or injured crewmember. Specific medical conditions have been targeted, prioritized by risk to exploration missions, where imaging and imaging-derived capabilities are required for diagnosis and treatment. Research aims have also been identified that will require scanning for studying bone degradation, muscle atrophy, and loss of cardiovascular function during manned space flight. From the research and medical operational needs, these targeted conditions fall into seven categories:
The first category is musculoskeletal injuries/traumas requiring high contrast high resolution visualization of bone, muscle and connective tissues for the detection of injury to determine proper treatment. Gaps in this category include:
Meeting two often-conflicting needs for the ability to take images within bony structures versus maintaining high contrast in the surrounding soft tissues.
Inability to obtain images of fracture using spaceflight compatible hardware. Forward technology development aims should include improving the capability to penetrate both soft tissue and underlying bone to diagnose fractures. Additional capabilities should include the ability to provide contrast enhancement in connective tissues and develop quantitative techniques for measuring bone degradation, muscle atrophy, changes in the lumbar spine, and compartment syndrome during exploration missions. Further gap closure might necessitate developing compact, flight-qualified radiographic capabilities for projection (and potentially tomographic) imaging.
The second category includes internal injuries/traumas, which require high resolution, high contrast imaging to identify fluid collections and to locate subtle, often occult, injury sites in the soft parenchymal and connective tissues and their associated vasculature. Forward technology development aims in this area include improving the capability to visualize soft tissue deeper within the abdomen in sites that are currently occult (e.g., the pancreas), and providing contrast enhancement among abdominal and thoracic tissues. Further gap closure might necessitate developing flight-qualified radiographic capabilities for projection (and especially tomographic) imaging. Imaging derived technologies may also provide capability for treatment of specific conditions such as renal colic and internal hemorrhage.
Four categories of conditions, ear/nose/throat (ENT) pathologies, ophthalmic injuries/pathologies, topical injuries/pathologies, and oral/dental pathologies, are more amenable to traditional optical imaging techniques for diagnosis. These conditions sometimes require high resolution images for the detection of relatively small pathologies. Gaps in these areas include the need to address a wide variety of conditions and the need to obtain depth penetration in lesions.
The final category, cardiovascular pathology, requires high resolution, high contrast dynamic imaging of the heart muscle anatomy, arterial and vascular condition and blood flow in all areas of the cardiovascular system. Gaps in this category include meeting the need to produce high resolution images (sub-millimeter resolution) with high temporal fidelity. Generally, successful utilization of less intuitive imaging technologies by minimally trained personnel to ensure ease of use and interpretation is a challenge that must be addressed.
Challenge: Real-time Microbiology Analysis and Water and Surface Microbiological Monitoring
Ka-Yiu San – experience with bacteria
Tony Mikos – some experience with antimicrobial materials
Jeff Tabor – experience with bacteria
NASA seeks methods for real-time microbiological monitoring and analysis of spacecraft water and surfaces. Likely contamination events will include fungal contamination of the vehicle interior surfaces and bacterial contamination of the potable water systems. Requirements include a need for extended shelf life of consumables, improved autonomy of the crew to monitor and respond without Earth-based technical support, and the provision of greater information for decision-making. This information must include microbial concentration and identification, as well as identification of characteristics such as the degree of antibiotic resistance, virulence, and toxigenicity. These methods must also address spaceflight constraints of low volume, mass, and power requirements.
Challenge: Behavioral Health and Performance Tools
Contact the psychology department
NASA is seeking a system to understand and measure the performance effects of team cohesion, team composition, team training, or psychosocial adaptation for application to spaceflight on the base of ground based evidence. Evidence from spaceflight and ground-based studies supports the idea that both performance and health are influenced by several interpersonal factors related to teamwork including team cohesion, team selection and composition, team training, and psychosocial adaptation. NASA Behavioral Health and Performance needs to characterize and mitigate three human health risks:
· Risk of Behavioral and Psychiatric Conditions
· Risk of Performance Errors Due to Poor Team Cohesion and Performance, Inadequate Selection/Team Composition, Inadequate Training, and Poor Psychosocial Adaptation
· Risk of Performance Errors Due to Sleep Loss, Fatigue, Circadian Desynchronization, and Work Overload.
Challenge: Food Packaging - Extend Life and Reduced O2
Jordan Miller – materials expertise
Dan Harrington – materials expertise
Amina Qutub – oxygen sensing expertise
NASA seeks safe, nutritious, acceptable, and varied shelf-stable foods with a shelf life of 3 - 5 years to support the crew during future exploration missions to the Moon or Mars. Concurrently, the food system must efficiently balance appropriate vehicle resources such as mass, volume, water, air, waste, power, and crew time. New food packaging technologies are needed that have adequate oxygen and water barrier properties to maintain the foods' quality over a 3 - 5 year shelf life. Oxygen ingress can result in oxidation of the food and loss of quality or nutrition. Water ingress can result in quality changes such as difficulty in rehydrating the freeze-dried foods. Currently the packaging used for freeze-dried foods and natural form foods does not have adequate oxygen and moisture barrier properties to allow for an 18-month shelf life for ISS. Therefore, those foods are over wrapped with a second foil-containing package which has higher barrier properties, resulting in increased mass and volume. NASA food packaging should be compatible with current and emerging food preservation technologies should have an oxygen transmission rate that shall not exceed 0.06 cc/m2/24 hrs/atm and a water vapor transmission rate that shall not exceed 0.01 gm/m2/24 hrs.
Challenge: Compact Effective Aerobic and Resistive Exercise Device
Contact our design faculty: Renata Ramos, Maria Oden, Matthew Wettergreen, Eric Richardson, also Brian Gibson in Kinesiology
NASA seeks an effective aerobic and resistive exercise device for the Constellation vehicles, in a small footprint and with minimal impact to the vehicle resources. Constellation mission scenarios will require crewmembers to transit in microgravity and live and work in partial gravity for extended periods of time, initially with missions of approximately 14 days to missions on the order of months (and years with respect to Mars). Returning ISS crewmembers continue to exhibit losses in bone density, cardiovascular capacity, and muscle strength despite the prescribed exercise prescriptions to target these losses. In order to maintain these physiological capabilities so that Constellation crewmembers can perform their mission tasks and return home safely, the device has been allocated 20 lb for mass, stowed in approximately 1 cubic foot of space, and prohibits the device from drawing electricity from the vehicle. Along with these physical limitations on the device, the vehicle's environmental control and life support system will limit aerobic and resistive exercise to 1 hour total per day for each of the 4 crewmembers.
Challenge: Develop Radiation Biological Countermeasures to Reduce Biological Damage Due to Ionizing Radiation
Jane Grande-Allen – connective tissue expertise
Tony Mikos and Cindy Farach-Carson – connective tissue expertise
NASA is seeking effective countermeasures to reduce the biological damage produced by ionizing radiation during human spaceflight missions, as well as treatments for acute radiation syndrome symptoms to prevent mission operational impacts. Space radiation field differs dramatically in composition, and the biological effects are varied for low dose-rate compared with acute irradiation. Both preflight countermeasures to reduce the effects of spaceflight exposures to chronic exposures to galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and post exposure countermeasures to treat large intense solar-particle events (SPE) which could produce acute radiation syndromes are of interest.
Challenge: Develop and Maintain Human/Systems Integration (HSI) Standards
Phil Kortum in Psychology
NASA needs an effective method for developing and applying Human System Integration (HSI) standards early in the human spaceflight program/vehicle design process to enhance human performance and enable mission success.
Challenge: Bone Microarchitecture In-Flight Monitor
Tony Mikos and Cindy Farach-Carson – bone experts
Also contact Michael Leibschner at BCM
NASA seeks high resolution technologies that can distinguish trabecular thickness and spacing for sites of the central skeleton to evaluate the temporal changes in cancellous bone microarchitecture due to mechanical unloading and loading - such as i) with the spaceflight analog (bed rest model), ii) with varying durations of spaceflight, iii) with return to 1G and iv) with exercise rehabilitation. Quantitative Computed Tomography [QCT] hip scans of ISS crewmembers reveal that the cortical bone volumetric Bone Mineral Density [vBMD] of the femoral neck and of the proximal femur are significantly reduced during spaceflight with a greater percentage of vBMD lost in cancellous vs. cortical bone compartment. Further evidence indicates that vBMD of cancellous bone in the femoral neck does not recover in crewmembers in the 2-4 years after return from flight. It is reported that, in vertebral bodies, the loss of trabecular connectivity and the perforation of trabeculae within cancellous bone is associated with reduced whole bone strength and fracture. However, QCT notably does not have the resolution to evaluate how the microarchitecture of cancellous bone is disrupted with the increased bone resorption that occurs in space.
Challenge: Lack of Minimally Invasive In-Flight Laboratory Capabilities with Limited Consumables Required for Diagnosing Identified Exploration Medical Conditions
Rebekah Drezek
Rebecca Richards-Kortum
John McDevitt
Tomasz Tkaczyk
David Zhang
Junghae Suh
NASA seeks a system to perform in-flight analysis of bodily fluids (urine, blood, saliva) on the lunar surface, providing the data near real-time in lieu of post flight results and that will also reduce launch/return mass/volume. . In addition to microfluidic processing systems, non-invasive monitoring devices may also be considered. Such miniaturized systems are dependent upon space medical standards and requirements that will be determined based on expert opinion, risk assessments and evidence bases.
Challenge: Radiation Shielding in Spacecraft Design
Michael Deem – has experience in optimization of chemical materials design
NASA seeks radiation protection in manned space vehicles because of cost and up-mass considerations. Methods exist today for direct manipulation of design concepts to maximize performance using on-board materials, but these could be substantially improved through other means. Novel materials or novel optimization approaches beyond standard application of computer clusters to difficult problems are needed in order to realize the next generation of approaches to this radiation protection issue.
B. Human Health & Performance Technology Needs:
Top Five Technology Needs:
1. Medical Screening technologies: The technology challenge is screening and health status monitoring for anticipated human medical conditions and individual susceptibilities to environmental stressors and disease. Screening technologies to personalize in-flight medical planning and care; pharmacogenomics; and radiation exposure-associated risks andelopment of capabilities for prevention, screening for risk factors, radiation biomarkers for early diagnosis and effective treatment. This includes, but not limited to, malignancies, cataracts, increased intracranial pressure (ICP), cardiovascular risks, bone loss, oxidative stress, renal stone formation, sleep disorders, anxiety/depression, susceptibility to radiation and elevated CO2 levels. Particular importance is given to radiation exposure-associated risks and the development of capabilities for prevention, screening for risk factors, radiation biomarkers for early diagnosis and effective treatment. Screening technologies to personalize in-flight medical planning and care; pharmacogenomics.
John McDevitt
- Disease and therapeutic monitoring markers for better diagnosis and treatment
- Genomic screening and health status markers (predictive and preventive value)
2. Portable in-flight bio-sample analysis: The technology challenge is point-of-care diagnostic devices that reduces mass, power, volume and consumables requirements. Multiplexed capabilities highly desirable. For biomedical research: Biological sample collection; sample and reagent storage; hand-held in-flight sample analysis (universal molecular sensors applied to several kinds of analytes: nucleic acids, small molecules, proteins, all measured with the same platform if possible; microfluidic devices, flow cytometry, qPCR, proteomics, microscopy, spectrophotometry/fluorometry, miniaturized mass spectrometry. Multiplexed capabilities highly desirable. John McDevitt, Michael Diehl, David Zhang