Neurovestibular (sensory-motor) changes occur immediately in response to spaceflight conditions, persist throughout the flight, and sometimes continue after landing. Examples of neuro-vestibular changes are dizziness and disorientation. Many of us as children had fun spinning ourselves (or our friends) until a sudden stop caused everything around us to spin. crew members often experience this dizziness and disorientation while trying to perform important tasks, such as landing the vehicle or conducting activities that require accurate and tedious hand-eye coordination. This presents serious risk to the health and safety of the crew. Knowledge of neurovestibular changes is limited to changes that happen to Shuttle and ISS crew members, and it is currently unknown whether any of the changes are permanent and what the recovery timeline is for temporary changes. Countermeasures are required to reduce neurovestibular changes and pre-adapt crew members for transitions between different amounts of gravity.

What are the big challenges that the NxPCM Project must meet?

Extended missions to the Moon and Mars require unprecedented durations of flights to planetary bodies far from Earth. Current knowledge of physiological changes caused by spaceflight is limited to data from crew members on shorter flights of the Shuttle and ISS. We must be sure the crew on exploration missions has with them everything they will need to maintain their health and safety, and that they are able to perform mission operations once they reach their destination, and then return home safe and healthy. Countermeasures (such as exercise regimens) will play a critical role in the functioning of the body in space and after landing on the Moon, Mars, or Earth. The NxPCM Project works with other NASA projects responsible for other areas of study to be sure different countermeasures are compatible with each other and have a positive synergistic effect.

Who is involved in the NxPCM Project, and where are they?

The NxPCM Project was created by NASA Headquarters in 2005 under the Human Research Program within the Human System Research and Technology Theme. The NxPCM Project Office operates under the Human Adaptation and Countermeasures (HACD) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Personnel involved in NxPCM-related investigations are located at NASA facilities (Johnson Space Center and Ames Research Center) as well as at universities and research institutions across the U.S. University investigators may work individually or through association with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a consortium of 12 universities formed to focus research on critical needs of space exploration. Specific laboatories involved in NxPCM research at the Johnson Space Center include the Bone, Cardiovascular, Immunology, Microbiology, Neurosciences, Nutritional Biochemistry, Pharmacotherapeutics, and Disease Modeling and Tissue Analogues Laboratories.

What will the NxPCM Project do?

The NxPCM Project develops, evaluates, validates, and implements technologies for risk assessment and mitigation, and countermeasures for health and safety risks relevant to planned space exploration. The project goal is to help ensure crewmember health and safety, by gaining knowledge and developing technologies to advance NASA's practice of evidence-based medicine, and by providing methods and technologies that enable NASA to safely and effectively use products, procedures, and strategies to prevent or minimize systemic physiological changes caused by spaceflight. Knowledge and further development of technologies and required countermeasures will be extended to missions to Mars.

Research into physiological adaptation in general is being done in many different places by a large number of researchers. The NxPCM Project is concerned specifically with aspects of long-term spaceflight, including:

• Establishing medical standards and safe operational limits for astronaut health
• Determining effects of long-term space flight on astronaut physiology
• Identifying "gaps" between needed astronaut performance capabilities and space flight affected performance capabilities
• Developing safe and effective countermeasure systems which mitigate adverse space flight effects on astronauts in space
• Minimizing risk of incompatibility between countermeasure systems
• Demonstrating countermeasure system efficacy under conditions similar to planned operational flight use
• Ensuring that stable and effective physiological countermeasures are available for long-term missions to the Moon and Mars

The NxPCM Project will coordinate existing research and focus new proposals to gain and apply knowledge to resolve these concerns.

When will the NxPCM Project do all this?

Efforts are currently underway. Any requirements the NxPCM Project proposes that will affect the initial design of the next-generation exploration spacecraft and space suits must be submitted in the next 2 to 4 years. Requirements that may affect mission planning or astronaut training must be submitted at least 2 years before the mission. At this time, NxPCM Project efforts are focused on the long-term lunar and Mars missions scheduled for the timeframe of 2020 or later.

 
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