REACH最新文献

Antarctic stations have for decades been used as research analogues of spacecraft, especially space stations such as Skylab, Mir, and the International Space Station. It is time to review this practice. True, the two environments generally share isolation, confinement, novelty, discomfort, danger, and remoteness. Assuming them to be analogues is attractive to both researchers and space agencies as an economy measure: research in space is expensive, complicated, and limited in research time, facilities, and subjects. Although research in Antarctica has some of the same problems, they are much less severe there; significant savings in effort, time, and money are possible. But analogues should not merely look similar, they should have similar effects. Is this true of Antarctica and space? Data from multi-year studies conducted in the two environments should compare both the stressful and adverse and healthful, positive effects of the two environments on human psychology in order to evaluate this question.

Commercial access to space travel for private individuals is a near-term reality. Compared to the few professional astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts who have flown in space through government programs in the past six decades, the number of these new spaceflight participants (SFPs) will rapidly expand. The SFP cohort will have a much greater age range than traditional astronauts and may also have a much greater prevalence of medical problems. To date, regulation regarding medical screening, certification, or guidelines for suborbital and orbital SFPs has been relegated to the commercial space companies. However, many organizations, ranging from space advocacy groups to academic institutions to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), have offered input and recommendations for medical screening of SFPs for the industry’s consideration. Simultaneously, governmental space agencies have made progress in defining appropriate preflight medical testing and medical standards and for those commercial providers that plan to provide access to the International Space Station (ISS).

There is limited information available with regard to the effect of spaceflight-related stressors like acceleration, microgravity, and altered atmospheric pressure and breathing gas mixtures on individuals with medical conditions. To date, most research on humans exposed to challenging or extreme environments has focused on a healthy, young, and predominately male population. However, recent studies funded in part by the FAA and conducted by university programs have examined the effect of certain medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and back problems in the acceleration environment. While the numbers are small, the early data from these studies examining the effects of acceleration are reassuring.

There is still much for space medicine providers to learn from this new cohort of individuals that will soon be participating in commercial space activities. With appropriate training and treatment or stabilization of medical liabilities, most of those who desire to fly in space will be able to safely accomplish their dream.

This paper explores the legal framework applicable to human orbital spaceflight and the legal issues arising from prospected suborbital spaceflight. The main legal, medical and ethical issues related to the selection procedure and certification of commercial spaceflight participants on the International Space Station as well as on other vehicles reaching space are analysed in the backdrop of existing international regulation and emerging national legislation for commercial spaceflight.

A summary of the lunar environment is provided as background to the issues that await resolution by structural engineers who will design habitats for long-term stays on the Moon, initially by pioneering astronauts, and eventually by people who will call the Moon their home. Key environmental concerns are the radiation and micrometeoroid environment, the hard vacuum, and the lack of atmosphere. The lunar dust poses a carcinogenic hazard, as well as an existential threat to engineered systems. Structures need to be designed with an eye to the psychological wellbeing of the inhabitants. This review provides an introduction into some of these aspects of lunar habitat design, and is based on the 2018 book by the author.

The LED lighting systems are regarded as perspective light sources for known and projectable space greenhouses (SG), as well as terrestrial greenhouses and plant factories on the Earth. At the same time, inconsistency of information about physiological effects produced by LED lighting and irregular character of plant responses to LED lighting have so far restricted the application of LED light systems. This review provides an analysis of the current concepts concerning the role of light for photoautotrophic plants and paths of interaction between different plant light perception systems. We summarize the accumulated knowledge about the main reactions of plant species to narrow-band lighting. We also provide an analysis of the basic parameters of plant lighting regimes – photosynthetic photon flux density, photoperiod, light spectrum and pulsed light vs continuous light – and their influence on crop light use efficiency. We discuss possible quantitative criteria for the evaluation of plant lighting regime quality inside the SG, and highlight the importance of statistical methods of experimental data analysis and the need to minimize the number of optimized parameters. Multi-factorial plant experiments and posterior regression analysis can be a convenient approach to optimize LED irradiation inside space greenhouses.

Controlled ecological life support system (CELSS) is an effective way to guarantee the survival of astronauts for the long-term manned deep space exploration and the settlement on extraterrestrial planets. CELSS can provide almost all the most important life-sustaining materials by the continuous regeneration and self-cycle supply, such as food, oxygen and water, etc. In this paper, the basic developmental history and the currently important research progress of CELSS are expounded, and the main technical challenges and future countermeasures are put forward too. This review is aimed at laying a reference for the development and earlier application of CELSS in the future.

The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of ideas and proposals for space stations and space colonies since the last hundred years, starting with the Russian space pioneer Tsiolkovsky and focusing on some recent projects of the author. A permanent lunar base will be the first step, but Moon and Mars have much less gravity than Earth. For this reason engineers and architects were searching for space habitat design using artificial gravity. Rotating space stations – modular, toroidal, spherical and cylindrical – may provide a comfortable environment for astronauts and space settlers of the future. Within the so called “habitable zone” between Earth and Mars natural sunlight can be used for the illumination of space stations and space colonies. In the long run asteroids and the Moon will be mined and may provide the building material for large self-sustaining space colonies. Water can be taken from icy Near Earth Asteroids. We discuss methods of meteorite and radiation shielding as well as thermal protection. Hollow asteroids can be used as a natural shelter for space stations after the end of the mining process.

We summarized the current knowledge about adaptation processes of isolated immune cells, animal models and the human body to altered gravity conditions. Many studies indicate an adaptation reaction of the immune system to the new microgravity environment, at least for the T cell system. Animal and human studies indicated adaptation processes starting after two weeks and continuing until 6 month or longer, which was reflected by cytokine concentrations in blood plasma or in stimulation assays. Adaptive reactions regarding IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-2 concentrations were detected after 12 days spaceflight in animal studies and after 2–4 months in human studies, whereas adaptive reactions regarding IL-4, IL-6, IL-8 and IL-10 were found after 6 months spaceflight. Cellular studies were performed mainly as short-term studies, and only a few studies addressed alterations longer than 3 days. However, cross validation between studies is often not possible or indicated conflicting results. Many in vitro studies, mostly done with T lymphocytes, demonstrated extensive cellular and molecular alterations. In contrast, long-term studies with animals and humans are completely lacking this dramatic picture of short-term cellular effects, which indicates a very efficient adaptation process, partially evidenced by new steady state of adaptive response in the human immune system after weeks until months. Therefore, we assume that the human body and its cells are equipped with a robust and efficient adaptation potential when challenged with low gravitational environments.