Jimmy Wu’s research while affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine and other places

The surge in commercial and civilian spaceflight enables for the first time, systematic and longitudinal, large-scale biospecimen collection to understand prospective effects of space travel on human health. The Genomics and Space Medicine (Space Omics) project at BCM-HGSC involves a comprehensive biospecimen collection plan from commercial/private space flight participants (SFP). Biospecimens from multiple pre-launch (leading up to quarantine period) and post-return (the day of return, R + 0 onwards) time points are collected. The diverse array of biospecimen collections include venous blood, body swabs, saliva, stool, and urine samples and their derivatives. The manuscript addresses the critical gaps thus far in the biospecimen collection process such as informed consent process and a provision for subjects to obtain custom CLIA-WGS reports. We discuss here, the biospecimens collection, processing methodologies and nucleic acids’ suitability for Omics data generation, including successful generation of 16S rRNA data that have been presented as a ‘Genomic Evaluation of Space Travel and Research (GENESTAR)’ manual. Results from Axiom-2 mission where, a total of 339 biospecimens were collected using this manual, at two different sites, showed that 98% of the accessed blood samples and 91.6% of the non-blood samples passed the QC requirements for Omics assays, underscoring the reliability and effectiveness of the GENESTAR manual. Also for the for the first time, to support Space Omics studies, details of a data dictionary and a LIMS enabled biobank, are provided.

Human spaceflight has historically been managed by government agencies, such as in the NASA Twins Study¹, but new commercial spaceflight opportunities have opened spaceflight to a broader population. In 2021, the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission launched the first all-civilian crew to low Earth orbit, which included the youngest American astronaut (aged 29), new in-flight experimental technologies (handheld ultrasound imaging, smartwatch wearables and immune profiling), ocular alignment measurements and new protocols for in-depth, multi-omic molecular and cellular profiling. Here we report the primary findings from the 3-day spaceflight mission, which induced a broad range of physiological and stress responses, neurovestibular changes indexed by ocular misalignment, and altered neurocognitive functioning, some of which match those of long-term spaceflight², but almost all of which did not differ from baseline (pre-flight) after return to Earth. Overall, these preliminary civilian spaceflight data suggest that short-duration missions do not pose a significant health risk, and moreover present a rich opportunity to measure the earliest phases of adaptation to spaceflight in the human body at anatomical, cellular, physiological and cognitive levels. Finally, these methods and results lay the foundation for an open, rapidly expanding biomedical database for astronauts³, which can inform countermeasure development for both private and government-sponsored space missions.

We are now entering the new space age! In 2021, for the first time in history that there is civilian crew in space, demonstrating the next frontier of human space exploration that will not be restricted to highly trained astronauts but will be open to a more general public. However, keeping a human healthy, happy and productive in space is one of the most challenging aspects of current space programs [11]. Thus, there is an emerging opportunity for researchers in HCI to design and research new types of interactive systems and computer interfaces that can support humans living and working in space and elsewhere in the solar system. Last year, SpaceCHI workshop (https://spacechi.media.mit.edu/) at CHI 2021 welcomed over 130 participants from 20 countries around the world to present new ideas and discuss future possibilities for human-computer interaction for space exploration. The SpaceCHI 1.0, for the first time, brought together crossdisciplinary researchers from HCI, aerospace engineering, robotics, biological science, design, art, architecture to envision the future of human space exploration leading the workshop participants and organizers to form a new global community focused on HCI research for space applications. With success from the previous SpaceCHI, we are exploring the exciting opportunity for researchers in HCI to contribute to the great endeavor of space exploration by participating in our workshop.

Despite rigorous health screenings, medical incidents during spaceflight missions cannot be avoided. With long-duration exploration flights on the rise, the likelihood of critical medical conditions with no suitable treatment on board will increase. Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) could serve as a bridge treatment in space prolonging survival and reducing neurological damage in ischemic conditions such as stroke and cardiac arrest. We conducted a review of published studies to determine the potential and challenges of TH in space based on its physiological effects, the cooling methods available, and clinical evidence on Earth. Currently, investigators have found that application of low normothermia leads to better outcomes than mild hypothermia. Data on the impact of hypothermia on a favorable neurological outcome are inconclusive due to lack of standardized protocols across hospitals and the heterogeneity of medical conditions. Adverse effects with systemic cooling are widely reported, and could be reduced through selective brain cooling and pharmacological cooling, promising techniques that currently lack clinical evidence. We hypothesize that TH has the potential for application as supportive treatment for multiple medical conditions in space and recommend further investigation of the concept in feasibility studies.

Deep-space missions — such as a crewed voyage to Mars — will require a comprehensive medical care system to treat and maintain astronaut health. This system must address many of the same medical conditions that occur on Earth, as well as several that are unique to spaceflight environments. Hardware constraints are numerous, including mass, volume, usability by nonspecialists, and minimal need for consumable supplies, all of which are also relevant to medical care in remote-, ambulatory-, or home-care settings on Earth. This review describes the expected medical needs on deep-space missions, outlines the current state of the art of onboard medical capabilities, and highlights approaches and technologies that will likely be necessary to achieve autonomous health care for astronauts.