NASA Selects 25 Proposals to Support Health and Performance in Astronauts on Missions to the Moon and Mars
NASA’s Human Research Program and Space Biology Program will fund 25 proposals to help answer questions about astronaut health and performance during future long-duration missions beyond low-Earth orbit. The selected proposals will investigate biological, physiological, and behavioral adaptations to spaceflight. All of the selected projects will contribute to NASA’s long-term plans, which include human missions to the Moon and Mars.
The Human Research Program works to address the challenges of spaceflight that impact astronaut health, and its research may provide knowledge and technologies that could improve human health and performance during space exploration and aid the development of potential countermeasures for problems experienced during space travel. The Space Biology Program seeks to understand causal cellular and other mechanisms that underlie adaptation to fractional gravity levels in cells, microorganisms, plants, and animals.
NASA is laying the groundwork for future one-year exploration missions on the International Space Station. Researchers and scientists were asked to submit proposals that considered a robust program that could include as many as 30 astronauts: 10 to conduct shorter missions of up to two months, 10 as part of standard six-month missions, and 10 one-year missions in space. By using missions of varying length, NASA seeks to establish profiles of human physiological, behavioral, and psychological variables of importance for ensuring astronaut health and performance during future long-duration deep space missions. The selected investigations cover a variety of physiological systems including the brain, eyes, sensorimotor, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, bone, and immune. In addition to the studies NASA selected, partner space agencies from Canada, France, and Germany will contribute several experiments to the project.
With information gained from the selected studies, NASA aims to address five hazards of human space travel: space radiation, isolation and confinement, distance from Earth, gravity fields (or lack thereof), and hostile/closed environments that pose great risks to the human mind and body in space. Among the selected projects, topics include investigating biological, physiological, and behavioral functions of rodents during partial gravity exposures provided by centrifugation on the space station, studying vision problems in astronauts, identifying medical countermeasures to space radiation, and developing real-time human performance support for autonomous spaceflight.
The selected proposals are from 19 institutions in 11 states and will receive a total of approximately $30.5 million during a two- to seven-year period. One investigator is leading two different studies, and six investigators are new to the Human Research Program. The 25 projects were selected from 100 proposals received in response to the 2017 Human Exploration Research Opportunities Appendix C. Science and technology experts from academia, government, and industry reviewed the proposals.
The complete list of the selected proposals, principal investigators and organizations is available at: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-selects-25-proposals-to-support-health-performance-in-astronauts-missions-to-moon-mars.
