Antonsen Erik L, Myers Jerry G, Boley Lynn, Arellano John, Kerstman Eric, Kadwa Binaifer, Buckland Daniel M, Van Baalen Mary
Center for Space Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77007, USA.
NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, 44135, USA.
NPJ Microgravity. 2022 Mar 31;8(1):8. doi: 10.1038/s41526-022-00193-9.
NASA and commercial spaceflight companies will soon be retuning humans to the Moon and then eventually sending them on to Mars. These distant planetary destinations will pose new risks-in particular for the health of the astronaut crews. The bulk of the evidence characterizing human health and performance in spaceflight has come from missions in Low Earth Orbit. As missions last longer and travel farther from Earth, medical risk is expected to contribute an increasing proportion of total mission risk. To date, there have been no reliable estimates of how much. The Integrated Medical Model (IMM) is a Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) Monte-Carlo simulation tool developed by NASA for medical risk assessment. This paper uses the IMM to provide an evidence-based, quantified medical risk estimate comparison across different spaceflight mission durations. We discuss model limitations and unimplemented capabilities providing insight into the complexity of medical risk estimation for human spaceflight. The results enable prioritization of medical needs in the context of other mission risks. These findings provide a reasonable bounding estimate for medical risk in missions to the Moon and Mars and hold value for risk managers and mission planners in performing cost-benefit trades for mission capability and research investments.
美国国家航空航天局（NASA）和商业航天公司很快将把人类送回月球，最终再送上火星。这些遥远的行星目的地将带来新的风险，尤其是对宇航员团队的健康而言。目前，有关人类在太空飞行中的健康状况和表现的大部分证据都来自近地轨道任务。随着任务持续时间延长、飞行距离地球越来越远，预计医疗风险在总任务风险中所占比例将不断增加。迄今为止，尚无关于具体比例的可靠估计。综合医学模型（IMM）是NASA开发的一种用于医疗风险评估的概率风险评估（PRA）蒙特卡洛模拟工具。本文使用IMM对不同太空飞行任务持续时间的医疗风险进行基于证据的量化估计比较。我们讨论了模型的局限性和未实现的功能，以深入了解载人航天医疗风险估计的复杂性。研究结果有助于在其他任务风险的背景下确定医疗需求的优先级。这些发现为月球和火星任务的医疗风险提供了合理的边界估计，对风险管理者和任务规划者在进行任务能力和研究投资的成本效益权衡时具有参考价值。
