Significant attention has been given to methods of shielding human space participants from radiation on missions. But what if some astronauts suffer from susceptible DNA before entering the space radiation environment? Two American scientists have proposed that certain astronaut molecular profiles may 1) reduce inherent DNA stability, 2) slow DNA repair, and 3) render DNA more susceptible to mutational events when exposed to the radiation of space.

Michael A. Schmidt, Ph.D. (Sovaris Aerospace) and Thomas J. Goodwin, Ph.D. (NASA Johnson Space Center) have identified a novel approach to space radiation countermeasures, which is based on understanding the DNA stability, DNA repair capability, and oxidative susceptibility of individual astronauts before they enter the space environment. This methodology is linked to individual genotype and micronutrient status, both of which are potentially modifiable by appropriate pre-flight and in-flight countermeasures.

For instance, common gene mutations affecting one carbon metabolism (MTHFR, MTR, MTRR) may result in the build-up of a faulty base (uracil) within the DNA backbone. This can lead to single strand DNA breaks and double strand DNA breaks, before astronauts enter space. The effect of this is amplified by folate and B12 deficiency.

Other common gene mutations (Hfe) trigger excessive iron accumulation, which creates unstable DNA through oxidative stress mechanisms, also before entering space. Magnesium is a central atom in most DNA repair enzymes. Significant serum, urine, and muscle loss of Mg has already been found in ISS astronauts on long missions, thus raising the question about whether we are already flying some astronauts with diminished capacity to repair DNA damage.

According to Schmidt, "We are examining how individual molecular influences affect DNA stability and repair before astronauts enter the elevated radiation conditions of space, and then how to manage those influences while they live in space. But we are looking well beyond DNA and into the vast network of molecular influences on astronaut physiology. We and our colleagues are using genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to develop a platform for personalized medicine that will guide the present and future of human space flight. As the field evolves, we expect to increasingly be able to individualize countermeasures, so that each astronaut receives the protocol that is most suitable to him or her. This will be crucial for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Of equal importance, we use what we've learned from the complexity of space to translate these benefits to earth-based medicine."

Goodwin states, "In the end, it is about advancing the science and about developing solutions, which we see evolving in phases. Our goal, at minimum, includes: (1) establish the criteria for 'best evidence' that can be used to develop individualized countermeasures today; (2) establish the criteria for best evidence that prioritizes research, clinical assessment, and individualized countermeasures to be developed in the near term; and (3) establish a deliberate discovery path that seeks to develop sophisticated and more complex models for long-term deployment of personalized medicine, as the future standard of preparation and care in human space flight."

Their paper, entitled Personalized Medicine in Human Space Flight: Using Omics Based Analyses to Develop Individualized Countermeasures that Enhance Astronaut Safety and Performance, was recently published in the journal Metabolomics.

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New Ways To Protect Astronaut DNA Before Entering Space Radiation Environments

The four science instruments that will fly aboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have to be surgically installed for precision and accuracy. NASA has just released a time-lapse video showing how clean room engineers installed one of those instruments into a large component of the Webb telescope.

The Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, arrived at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., May 28, 2012, and has undergone inspection and testing. Recently, it was integrated into Webb's science instrument payload known as the Integrated Science Instrument Module, or ISIM. The ISIM will house the Webb's four main instruments.

The 1 minute and 1 second time-lapse video covers a period of four hours. It was filmed in the largest clean room at Goddard, where all four of the Webb telescope's instruments and mirrors currently reside. Viewers of the video will see engineers in clean room suits installing the MIRI over time.

"Actual total time to install the MIRI was just over four hours," said Jason Hylan, lead mechanical systems, mechanical integration and test, and opto-mechanical engineer for the ISIM at Goddard. "The MIRI had to be positioned to a tolerance of 25 microns, or one one-thousandth of an inch, which is less than the width of a human hair."

MIRI will allow scientists to study cold and distant objects in greater detail than ever before. MIRI will observe light with wavelengths in the mid-infrared range of 5 microns to 28 microns, which are longer wavelengths than human eyes can detect and even beyond the 0.6 micron to 5 micron wavelength range of Webb's other three instruments.

MIRI's capabilities will allow it to observe older, cooler stars in very distant galaxies, unveil newly forming stars within our Milky Way, find signatures of the formation of planets around stars other than our own, and record images and spectra of planets, comets and the outermost bits of debris in our solar system.

MIRI's mid-infrared coverage will complement the near-infrared capabilities of the other instruments, including observations of the most distant objects to help determine whether or not they are among the first ones that formed in the universe.

The MIRI was developed by a consortium of 10 European institutions in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. It was assembled at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom and delivered to NASA by the European Space Agency.

The most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Webb's four instruments will reveal how the universe evolved from the Big Bang to the formation of our solar system. Webb is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

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NASA Time-lapse Video Shows MIRI Installation on Webb Telescope

CHIBA, Japan - High school physics teacher Takanobu Yoneya, 32, who has long dreamed of becoming an astronaut, has won a seat on a suborbital space flight in a national contest.

The contest was organised by Axe, a men's cosmetics brand owned by Unilever.

Yoneya's desire to fly in space was spurred by two key influences. The first came when he was a primary school student and was moved by the star-filled sky above his grandfather's house in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture. Photos of space shuttles from the United States also drove his ambition.

After joining an aviation club when he was in university, Yoneya took to the sky in gliders. He went on to study astrophysics in graduate school. Since acquiring his pilot's license for light aircraft in the United States, he has returned once every few years to fly airplanes there.

Yoneya teaches at Chiba Municipal Chiba High School, his alma mater.

A campaign website was used for the primary selection of candidates from among 1,515 contestants. Yoneya asked students who had taken his supplementary summer class during the school break last year for support, saying, "Please vote for me if you felt my class was helpful."

After passing the primary selection with about 380 votes, he made it through the second-stage screening interview and the final selection phase in the United States. He is one of 25 successful would-be space travelers selected from all over the world.

The flight will be made in the second half of next year at the earliest. The plan is to fly into outer space on a suborbital space plane at an altitude of more than 100 kilometers and to experience zero gravity for about 10 minutes.

"I'm excited to see firsthand phenomena that happen in a gravity-free state," Yoneya said.

He said that after he returns from space, he would like to tell his students, "If you hold fast to your dream, it will surely come true someday."

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High-school teacher's space flight dream to come true

Enlarge / What might have been.

Lee Hutchinson / NASA / NOAA

If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

Astronaut Gus Grissom, 1965

It is important to note at the outset that Columbia broke up during a phase of flight that, given the current design of the Orbiter, offered no possibility of crew survival.

Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

At 10:39 Eastern Standard Time on January 16, 2003, space shuttle Columbia lifted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A mere 81.7 seconds later, a chunk of insulating foam tore free from the orange external tank and smashed into the leading edge of the orbiter's left wing at a relative velocity of at least 400 miles per hour (640 kph), but Columbia continued to climb toward orbit.

The foam strike was not observed live. Only after the shuttle was orbiting Earth did NASA's launch imagery review reveal that the wing had been hit. Foam strikes during launch were not uncommon events, and shuttle program managers elected not to take on-orbit images of Columbia to visually assess any potential damage. Instead, NASA's Debris Assessment Team mathematically modeled the foam strike but could not reach any definitive conclusions about the state of the shuttle's wing. The mission continued.

In reality, the impact shattered at least one of the crucial reinforced carbon-carbon heat shield panels that lined the edge of the wing, leaving a large hole in the brittle ceramic material. Sixteen days later, as Columbia re-entered the atmosphere, superheated plasma entered the orbiter's structure through the hole in the wing and the shuttle began to disintegrate.

At Mission Control in Houston, the flight controllers monitoring Columbia's descent began to notice erratic telemetry readings coming from the shuttle, and then all voice and data contact with the orbiter was lost. Controllers continued to hope that they were merely looking at instrumentation failures, even as evidence mounted that a catastrophic event had taken place. Finally, at 9:12 Eastern Time, re-entry Flight Director LeRoy Cain gave the terrible order that had only been uttered once before, 17 years earlier when Challenger broke apart at launch: "Lock the doors."

Read more from the original source:

The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia