Clinical Risk Management to Enable Long-Duration Exploration Missions
- Paper number
IAC-08.A1.3.5
- Author
Dr. Jeffrey R. Davis, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Johnson Space Center/USRA, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. Ashot Sargsyan, Wyle Laboratories, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. Gary Gray, Defense Research and Development Canada, Canada
- Year
2008
- Abstract
Clinical Risk Management to enable long-duration space missions Introduction Maintaining human health and performance will be essential to the success of long duration exploration missions to the moon and Mars. Data from the five partners of the International Space Station (ISS) demonstrate that clinical events will occur despite sophisticated screening and heath maintenance programs. The ISS Multilateral Space Medicine Board (MSMB) has adopted a methodology to analyze the medical risks of an individual, including particular manifestations or complications of known conditions, to their health, mission, and program success. Such in-depth consideration permits adequate risk mitigation measures, from prevention to medical care capability, into the medical certification process. Methods Data will be presented to demonstrate the scope of clinical issues considered by the MSMB while evaluating certification for long-duration (one to six months or longer) missions to the ISS. In addition, ground-based data will be discussed to demonstrate the range of clinical issues that present in a well-screened astronaut and cosmonaut population with excellent health maintenance programs. Clinical risk matrices will be presented that consider the probability of occurrence/recurrence of clinical problems with commensurate risks to the individual, mission, or program. Individual cases will be discussed. The continued development and use of these matrices will ensure further maturation of screening, health maintenance and in-flight medical care programs to enable a three-year mission to Mars. Publication of these results will allow current and future partners to design better health care programs, and may contribute to the successful development of the commercial space flight industry. Conclusion The five ISS partners have collected clinical data and developed risk analysis matrices to evaluate candidates for long-duration space missions. Screening and health maintenance programs, as well as medical standards have been improved based on these results. The rigor of this clinical risk management approach, as it continues to develop, will further enable the successful accomplishment of very long duration missions (up to three years) to Mars and other planets. This publication will be the next in a series of publications by the government space programs (ISS Partners) related to human space flight medical risks, and can assist in the development of risk mitigation approaches in the commercial space flight programs (the previous publication can be found at Aviat Space Environ Med 2007;78:1162-1169.).
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)