Monthly Archives: October 2019

Mitchell Patterson /THE REVIEW Andrea Duckenfield wonders why people do not pay enough attention to space travel. She argues that we should increasingly look toward the stars.

BY ANDREA DUCKENFIELD

Space travel is hard. Its something that became an incredible milestone in the 1950s with the launch of Bumper Two, the NASA first launch out of Cape Canaveral in Florida. Throughout the next 50 years, NASA has made superior progress within the realm of space science; but are we done?

Many people began to think when news spilled out to the public that NASA was somehow done: no more missions, no more telescopes and no more people on the moon. Somehow, people thought the space agency terminated, but it is important for people to know that NASA has never stopped and they never will. They wont stop until all questions, even questions that nobody has asked yet, are answered.

NASA, and many other honorable mentions like SpaceX, continues to make incredible progress in answering the questions everyone has thought about. For example, is the universe expanding? Are we alone? And the question that was recently answered: What does a black hole do, and what does it look like?

It is important that the public starts paying an eye to whats happening outside of our Earths prison bars. Outside them, there is much more out there than stars and planets.

I believe the world should also pay more attention to NASA, as it is doing some record-breaking and phenomenal things. The missions and potential goals they have for the bright and exciting future of space travel is something you dont want to miss.

Andrea Duckenfield is a first-year student at the university studying physics and astronomy, and can be reached at andread@udel.edu.

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Opinion: What about space travel? The Review - University of Delaware Review

Image caption Dr Varsha Jain stands in front of an Orion crew module at Nasa's Johnson Space Center

Some 564 people have been into space - 65 of them women. That's despite the fact that the first woman in space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, went into orbit as early as 1963.

It took Nasa 20 years to catch up and in 1983 Sally Ride became the third woman, and first American woman to go into space. Before her voyage she was asked by the media if she was taking any makeup on her trip and whether she cried when there were malfunctions in the flight simulator.

On Friday 18 October, Nasa conducted its first ever all-female spacewalk, after plans earlier this year were scrapped because of a lack of medium-sized spacesuits to fit one of the astronauts.

For the last decade, Dr Varsha Jain has been working part-time as a space gynaecologist. She combines her PhD work at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh with research alongside Nasa into women's health in space.

She's been speaking to Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live.

VJ: Overall adaptation to the space environment is roughly the same for men and women but there are some differences.

Women are more likely to feel sick when they go into space, men are more likely to get re-entry sickness when they come back to Earth.

Men have more problems with their vision and hearing when they get back from space which women don't get. When women return they do have problems managing their blood pressure so they feel quite faint.

So there are some subtle differences and we don't know if that's to do with hormonal differences or more physiological changes that are occurring. And long-term, understanding those differences will help us understand more about human health on Earth.

VJ: When the Americans sent Sally Ride up into space, the questions that Nasa had were about what would happen to women's periods and how do we account for this.

Female astronauts said at the time, 'let's consider it non-problem until it becomes a problem'. But space travel is a bit like a camping trip and the engineers had to plan things like how many sanitary products were needed.

Because it was a very male dominated world, the figures that they thought they needed were 100 or 200 tampons for a week! They shortly came to the conclusion that that many weren't needed.

Most female astronauts now use the contraceptive pill to stop their periods and it is safe for them to do so because they are healthy women.

One of the parts of my work was to research other ways for women to stop their periods to see if things like the contraceptive coil could be more effective.

VJ: There are two toilets on the International Space Station, but the engineers hadn't originally accounted for blood.

In space, urine isn't wasted, it's recycled and drinking water is reclaimed from it. Period blood is considered a solid material and none of the toilets on the space station can differentiate solid from liquid material, therefore the water in it is lost and not recycled.

There are also limitations on how water can be used for washing, so the practicalities of personal hygiene while menstruating during spaceflight can be challenging.

VJ: There is no obvious demonstrable effect that going into space has on an astronaut's ability to have children. It is important to remember that both male and female astronauts have successfully had children after spaceflight missions.

However, female astronauts are, on average, 38 years old during their first mission.

This is an area where I think Nasa is leading the way in being a supportive working environment. Ultimately, freezing of eggs or sperm is entirely a personal choice and, as far as I am aware, Nasa does not have any protocols on what their astronauts should do prior to spaceflight missions.

We know astronauts are at risk of radiation in space and we haven't any idea how that will impact a women's fertility.

The quality of sperm and sperm count decreases after space travel, but then sperm regenerates back on Earth, so there is no known long-term damage. Women are born with all the eggs they need for their lifetime, so Nasa is very supportive of female astronauts freezing their eggs before their missions.

VJ: My interest in space came before my fascination with medicine. As a child, my brothers were both into Star Trek and seeing strong female characters like Beverly Crusher and Captain Kathryn Janeway really inspired me and shaped my goals.

I knew that I wanted to work in the area of space medicine and because I was practising gynaecology at the time I found a huge knowledge gap in terms of women's health that I thought deserved a platform.

My first day at Nasa, I was like a kid in a candy store. Driving up to the Nasa Johnson Space Centre, the first time I saw the sign I remember screaming because I was so excited. Every single day I remember waking up at 05:00 because I just couldn't wait to get to work.

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VJ: Not for a long duration mission! I know too much about the physiological changes and that puts me off.

The changes that happen to the human body are like an accelerated aging process. If we take bone changes, astronauts lose bone mass when they go into space and parts of that bone mass are never regained despite the excellent counter measures and programmes the astronauts have when they get back.

Obviously, I would love to see what Earth looks like from space, but long-term as a goal I think I know I'm doing my dream job already.

Dr Varsha Jain was one of the first academic doctors to focus on researching women's health in relation to space. She is currently the 2019 Wellbeing of Women Research Training Fellow at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh. investigating why women suffer from heavy menstrual bleeding.

The Emma Barnett show is on BBC Radio 5 Live Monday- Thursday 10:00 - 13:00 BST. Click here to listen to a 5 Live news special on BBC Sounds: The Women of Nasa.

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How space affects women and men differently - BBC News

Rumor has it, pop star Justin Bieber and actor Leonardo DiCaprio are taking a trip to outer space...

It sounds like a sci-fi movie, but have you heard of Virgin Galactic? Founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, the company has built the worlds first spaceship.

Let me be clear...

Its not just an idea. Its not just a concept. Its not just a glorified airplane.

Its a real, working SPACESHIP tested and approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Last December, this spaceship completed a successful test flight with two astronauts and a passenger on board. It blasted to the edge of earths atmosphere, 51.4 miles up then safely landed just outside Orlando, Florida.

Now, the company is preparing to launch the first commercial space flight in history, which is expected to take off as soon as 2020.

For the first time, civilians will have a chance to shuttle around in outer space.

The good news is you can be one of the first investors to buy the worlds first spaceship stock. And as Ill explain its an investment opportunity you should take seriously, just like these three I told you about before.

Virgin Galactic is an ultra-luxury tourism company, for now...

Virgin Galactic has already sold out its first batch of 600 flight tickets for a hefty fare of $250,000 collecting over $80 million. Another 1,500+ rich folks are on the waiting list.

As I mentioned before, the first passengers include celebrities like pop star Justin Bieber and actor Leonardo DiCaprio

Which led investors to label Virgin Galactic an ultra-luxury tourism company. Ive heard folks compare it to companies renting 300-foot-long yachts or private islands.

But make no mistake, Virgin Galactics ships are much more than a playground for rich people. Thats just step one in its plan to disrupt the space industry.

Space tourism is just a testing ground

Virgin Galactic has a unique business model that will let it earn hundreds of millions of dollars right out of the gate.

As a testing ground, it will sell its space flights to very rich folks as an expensive vacation.

And believe it or not, theres a huge market for this service.

The company says it needs to fly only 1,000 people a year to be a viable business. As I mentioned, there are already 1,500 on its waitlist and the company has barely marketed the concept at all.

If Virgin Galactic pulls this off, it will rake in $250 million in its first year as a public company. Thats 2X more than Amazon and Apple earned in their first years combined, as you can see below

RiskHedge

While the company rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars by pleasing ultra-rich folks, it will quietly start preparing for the next phase of space travel.

Virgin Galactic is coming to disrupt dreaded long-haul flights

Virgin Galactic sees an opportunity to disrupt long-haul travel by flying folks through outer space.

These flights can potentially get you from, say, New York to Tokyo in two hours as opposed to the 14 hours it takes today. And the company is making great strides toward it.

Virgin Galactic has recently joined forces with Boeing, the worlds largest plane-maker. They are developing a commercial spaceship that will travel at 5X the speed of sound 7X faster than todays commercial planes.

Within a decade, space travel will be a $23 billion industry and threaten airlines, according to UBS. And Virgin Galactic is positioned to be the unquestioned leader in this space.

Virgin Galactic is quietly tapping into an $800 billion industry

Air travel is an $800 billion a year industry. UBS estimates the space industry will be worth $805 billion by 2030. And space travel is just a tiny part of it.

Virgin Galactic is planning to use its spaceships to conduct science experiments, launch small satellites, and bring other cargo to space.

The possibilities are endless.

For example, president of Virgin Galactic Will Whitehorn thinks we could put computer servers powering the internet in space quite easily.

You see whats happening?

Most investors dismiss Virgin Galactics space flights as a gimmick. But the company is actually an up-and-coming space giant.

How to buy the worlds first commercial space stock

Earlier this year, Virgin Galactic announced it would merge with Social Capital Hedosophia (IPOA), a publicly traded shell company. The company will buy a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic.

That makes Social Capital Hedosophia the first publicly traded space stock available to the public.

I have to warn you, though.

The upside of this company is limitless. You would be buying into the very early stage of the company as well as the commercial space industry.

Social Capital Hedosophia is worth a little shy of a billion today, and its going after an $800 billion industry. Theres plenty of room for the company to grow 10X or more.

It could be like investing in Boeing right after it rolled the first Boeing 707 out of the hangar in 1957 a moment that changed aviation for good.

That said, Virgin Galactic has a very small margin for error. Any accident threatening human lives could send Virgin Galactic stock plunging down.

My recommendation: Put a small position in this stock, just like I did a couple of months ago. Make it small enough that big a drop in its price wouldnt hurt you badly.

Get our report"The Great Disruptors:3 Breakthrough Stocks Set to Double Your Money".These stocks will hand you 100% gains as they disrupt whole industries.Get your free copy here.

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Now You Can Buy The Worlds First Spaceship Stock - Forbes

Army Col. Drew Morgans list of accomplishments is extensive: graduate of West Point and member of the schools title-winning parachute team; ER doctor; battalion surgeon for 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), where he maintained his flight, dive and airborne qualifications; deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa; husband; father ... and NASA astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station.

Yet Morgan, who was hurtling through space at 17,150 miles per hour Wednesday and completed a harrowing 7-hour space walk earlier this month, choked up at the beginning of a live link with students from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in Bethesda, Maryland, where he is an alumnus.

Its such an honor to be with you. I have tears in my eyes, Morgan said, holding up a pennant bearing the USUHS logo. The Uniformed Services University is a center of excellence for military medicine, and Im so proud to be a part of your team.

Morgan has been in space since July 20, when he, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano blasted off from Kazakhstan in a Soyuz MS spacecraft. Like all astronauts on the ISS, Morgan is a jack-of-all-trades, conducting spacewalks, working on robotics, repairing the stations systems and managing research.

But on Wednesday, he took time out to discuss what its like to be in space with soon-to-be military physicians.

Commissioned in 1998, Morgans spent several tours overseas, deploying with special operations forces to Afghanistan, Iraq and several African countries. On those deployments, he used his skills as an emergency medical doctor to set bones, stitch wounds and save lives. In space, however, he uses his hands to install refrigerator-sized batteries on the outside of the space station, run experiments and occasionally deals with bumps, bruises and other minor ailments that affect astronauts.

An additional duty is crew medical officer, so when there is a physician on board, obviously Im a natural choice for that," he said.

When hes not conducting long space walks, Morgan largely is doing research, with more than 300 experiments on the ISS, including biological and human studies that have a goal of facilitating medical breakthroughs and understanding the effects of long-duration space travel.

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This past summer, the ISS acquired a biological 3D printer a BioFabrication Facility, or BFF to print human tissue from adult human cells and tissue-derived proteins, with an aim to eventual fabricate complex tissues, like organs, in space where gravity isnt a factor in supporting tissue shapes.

He and his fellow space travelers also are working on experiments using novel protein crystals that show potential for developing cancer medications and medications to fight Alzheimers and Parkinsons, he said.

Theres a lot of relevance for military medicine, Morgan told the students. When we grow tissues in culture on Earth we are required to use a scaffold. With [this] we are able to potentially grow structures we wouldnt be able to do on earth, it has some real potential and applications.

In earlier interviews, Morgan said his interest in space began as a child in Texas, where he saw the space shuttle fly overhead. In fourth grade, he was required to write a letter to a famous Texan; he chose Apollo astronaut Alan Bean, who actually wrote him back, and the seed was planted.

On Wednesday, he told the military medical students he wanted first to be a soldier. Then, while at the U.S. Military Academy, he decided to become a doctor. Finally, after serving with and caring for soldiers, he revisited his childhood dream to become an astronaut. He began training for his current flight since 2013.

Many of the experiments Morgan works on aboard the ISS focus on developing technologies and solutions for longer space missions, including NASAs Artemis program to put the first woman and another man on the Moon by 2024, as well as extended exploration of the lunar surface and eventually, sending astronauts to Mars.

Morgan said it would be doctors in this room who will help guide the medical research and health care needed to care for those future space travelers.

The room you are sitting in is filled with people who are going to help us tackle some of these problems of how we deal with surgical emergencies far away. Is this something well do robotically with remote guidance or is this something that well have a crew member trained ... so they could comfortably perform a surgical operation? I dont know that we know how we are going to deal with that yet, he said.

Since arriving at the ISS, Morgan has conducted three spacewalks, including one on Oct. 6 with fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch, during which he lost some material on the palm of his glove a potential threat to his protective space suits integrity. His tether became snarled on the ISS as he returned after a long day to the airlock, and the pair installed a battery that later was found to be broken.

Morgan said he relies heavily on his special operations training, first during his NASA training, and now, when potentially life-threatening problems occur.

Out-of-the-box thinking is one of the hallmarks of special operations always being the thought leader, on the cutting edge of how to solve problems under ambiguous circumstances with limited resources, Morgan said. [In Special Forces training], humans are more important than hardware. The emphasis is put on our people and developing them. Its something NASA does well and it was part of my operational skill set.

In the audience on Wednesday were two of Morgans former Army medics, Army 2nd Lt. Steve Radloff and Army Master Sgt. Daniel Morissette. Radloff is a 4th year medical student at USUHS; Morissette is in the schools Enlisted to Medical Degree Preparatory Program, hoping attend USUHS next year.

Radloff asked what lessons Morgan learned on crisis management on board the ISS, but Morgan was so excited to hear from him that he forgot the question.

You are some of the finest examples of medical professionals I have ever encountered," he said to his former medics. The greatest honor of my life was serving alongside you guys and many medics just like you. It warms my heart to see you so successful there.

Morissette later said Morgans heartfelt reply to Radloff was just one example of his humility.

Hes always been supportive of me, of what I was trying to achieve, regardless of what he had going on. When I was applying for this program, he was in the midst of his train-up for his launch, and he made time [to help me], Morissette said.

With his wife, Stacey, and four children at home, Morgan has, and will, miss many events while in space: anniversaries, sports games, school achievements, holidays. On Wednesday, Navy Ensign Ted Johnson reminded him he also will miss the Army-Navy football game on Dec. 14.

Good afternoon, Col. Morgan, my name is Ensign Ted Johnson, USU Class of 22, Naval Academy Class of 18, Go Navy, Beat Army, Johnson said.

Not likely, Morgan retorted.

Morgan and Parmitano are scheduled to make five spacewalks in November to repair the ISSs Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, cosmic-ray detector. All space walks can be watched live on NASA TV.

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Army astronaut to military medical students: You will solve the health issues of extended space flight - ArmyTimes.com

The Hope Mars Mission, also called the Emirates Mars Mission, is the first uncrewed, interplanetary satellite spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates. In fact, the Hope satellite is the first planetary science mission led by an Arab-Islamic country. And the United Arab Emirates has not shied away from making lofty goals for the spacecraft.

When Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, announced in July 2014 that the Emirates would send a satellite to Mars, he said that the launch date would be in July 2020, only six years from his announcement. That timing coincides with the alignment of Earth and Mars, which occurs once every two years. It also means the spacecraft should reach Mars in 2021, the year of the 50th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates' formation. The Emirati government later said it also planned to build a habitable settlement on Mars by 2117.

But the United Arab Emirates Space Agency the government agency tasked with developing and regulating a world-class space sector for the United Arab Emirates was established only in 2014, the same year that the Al-Amal (Arabic for "hope") mission was announced. And it wasn't until April 2015 that Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, established the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, where the Hope satellite would actually be built. That left the country with little time to reach its target launch date.

Related: A Brief History of Mars Missions

"We chose the epic challenge of reaching Mars because epic challenges inspire and motivate us," Mohammed bin Rashid said in the 2014 statement. "The moment we stop taking on such challenges is the moment we stop moving forward."

The United Arab Emirates Space Agency has faced those challenges head-on and accelerated forward. As of April 2019, the country had completed roughly 85% of the Hope probe, according to an article in Gulf News. And in September 2019, the United Arab Emirates sent its first Emirati astronaut into space. Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, a former pilot, spent eight days on the International Space Station, where he performed a series of experiments and gave a tour of the station in Arabic.

"The UAE is on the verge of making history, after turning its dream of becoming the first Arabic and Islamic country to send a spacecraft to Mars into reality," said Ahmad Belhoul al Falasi, chairman of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency. "This monumental endeavor is the culmination of the efforts of a skilled and experienced team of young Emiratis, who, with the support of the nation and its visionary leadership, will secure the UAE's position at the forefront of space exploration and the international space sector."

Built in collaboration with the University of Colorado Boulder, University of California, Berkeley, and Arizona State University, the Hope spacecraft is in many ways a state-of-the-art weather satellite. It will help answer some outstanding questions about Mars' climate and atmosphere. The satellite mission has four primary objectives:

Artistic rendition of what the Hope satellite will look like. It's essentially designed to be a state-of-the-art weather satellite.

(Image credit: UAE Space Agency)

The Hope satellite will have a total mass (including fuel) of 3,300 lbs. (1,500 kilograms), according to NASA. And at about 7.78 feet (2.37 meters) wide and 9.51 feet (2.90 m) tall, the probe will be about the size and weight of a small car. Four to six 120-newton Delta V thrusters will propel the spacecraft using hydrazine, and inorganic and highly volatile chemical.

After seven to nine months of space travel, the probe will approach its orbit around Mars in May 2021, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates. The spacecraft will then collect two years' worth of scientific data, with an optional two-year extension that would take the mission into 2025.

Hope will collect the scientific data using three state-of-the-art technologies mounted on the satellite:

The Emirates called the satellite "Hope" because its manufacture and scientific data would hopefully provide value for the future in two major ways: helping scientists understand how atmospheres evolve over time and helping to modernize the Arab world.

Understanding how factors such as sunlight, dust and temperature affect the entire Martian atmosphere each day and throughout the seasons could also illuminate details about the atmosphere around the Earth and even planets around other solar systems, called exoplanets, according to the missions scientific goals. Scientists could also use the information to model the future of Earth's atmosphere, such as how it may evolve under the forces of climate change.

Related: 7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars

The Emirati government has also said that it sees this satellite as a way to bring the Arab world back to the forefront of science and astronomy a position the region hasn't held since the Islamic Golden Age, from the ninth century to the 13th century. During that time, the Muslim world was the stronghold of knowledge in philosophy, math, astronomy and medicine. The Arabs made pioneering strides in algebra and trigonometry and further developed astronomical tools such as sundials. But since the end of its halcyon days, the Arab world has statistically made little contribution to science, according to a review in The New Atlantis.

The Hope satellite is an attempt to help change that.

"This is the Arab world's version of President John F. Kennedy's moonshot it's a vision for the future that can engage and excite a new generation of Emirati and Arab youth," said Yousef al Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to the United States, during the UAE Embassy's National Day celebration in 2015, The National reported.

The Emirati government invested over $5.5 billion into space-exploration efforts, according to The National. And as the first-ever Arab-Islamic mission to another planet using a satellite built entirely by a Muslim nation, Hope is expected to help catalyze the development of a new generation of Arab scientists and engineers. They, in turn, will help shift the country's economic system away from the oil industry and prepare it for a world that depends less on oil, Sarah Amiri, the mission's science lead, told Scientific American in 2016. As of July 2019, more than 70 Emirati scientists and engineers, almost all under age 35, were working on the mission. That number is expected to grow to 150 by 2020, according to Smithsonian.com.

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Hope Mars Mission: Launching the Arab World into the Space Race - Space.com

In order for man to walk on the moon, they must understand the wide-ranging effects that space travel can have on the body and prepare astronauts to endure them. Studying the physiological changes the body undergoes outside Earths atmosphere and keeping astronauts healthy during these missions has created a specialized area of study: space medicine.

The military has contributed to both space medicine and space travel throughout the decades, with doctors from the Military Health System providing insight and operational expertise to the health and safety of astronauts. Graduates of the Uniformed Services University for Health Sciences, or USU, are a prime example of these contributions, not onlycurrently serving in space onboard NASA missionsbut stationed on the ground as flight surgeons to keep those astronauts in peak health before, during, and after their missions.

Theres a uniqueness to what we do in space medicine, said Dr. Richard Scheuring, medical operations flight surgeon at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and associate professor of military and emergency medicine at USU.

After unmanned spacecraft flights by the United States and the Soviet Union succeeded in the late 1950s and NASAs first man-in-space program, Project Mercury, took shape in 1958, the role of space medicine became critical to mission success.

Despite this importance, space medicine was still a relatively unknown field for years according to Dr. Jonathan Clark, one of the first medical graduates of USU and current adjunct professor of neurology and space medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

You can trace the term back to the 1940s, Clark said, but I found out about the field through pure luck.

Originally a neurologist by trade, combining his experience as a naval flight officer with the medical training he received at USU opened Clark up to the steadily growing field of space medicine. His additional aerospace experience and meeting his late wife Laurel who was beginning her career as a NASA astronaut led him to a job in space medicine at the same organization.

Scheuring also discovered space medicine by chance. I saw an ad in the back of the New England Journal of Medicine for a space medicine fellowship and I thought, thats something I would really like to do.

Since their humble introductions to space medicine, both Scheuring and Clark have had impacts on the field with their military expertise and published research. Scheuring and a team of collaborators co-wrote the militarys first textbook chapter on operating in space. The Borden InstitutesFundamentals of Military Medicineis now required reading for students at USU.

This was the first time weve written a book like this, Scheuring said. This is the expert reference manual for any doctor going into military medicine now. Were really proud of this textbook.

Clarks contributions to space medicine were made as a member of the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Team, formed after the Columbia Disaster of 2003 in which the spacecraft disintegrated upon reentering the Earths atmosphere on its 28th space voyage. Clarks wife Laurel was one of the seven astronauts lost during the mission. TheColumbia Crew Survival Investigation Report, released in 2008, and asecond reportreleased in 2014, helped improve safety measures for astronauts exploring space.

You dont think about bad things happening in space, Clark said, but we did two really good reports [on the mission], which broached a whole new area of study that didnt have a lot published on it yet.

The influences of Clark and Scheuring on space medicine have not only shaped the current state of the field but its future too, as they both teach the subject to prospective medical students at their universities. Scheuring and Clark helped spearhead focuses in space medicine at USU and Baylor respectively, with interest in the field growing as a result of each program.

At this stage of my career, its all about passing the torch, Clark said of students in Baylors Center for Space Medicine. Clarks program merges the research aspects of space medicine with education, allowing the students to collaborate with space science professionals.

Our medical students get training in space medicine at all different year groups, Clark said, and what better way to integrate the next generation into the field than by having them solve real world problems?

Scheurings program at USU also grooms students for careers in space medicine through aerospace clerkships at NASA and Operation Bushmaster. The simulated mass casualty exercise, required of all fourth-year medical students at USU as well as some students in the graduate school of nursing, gives the students hands-on experience in a military mission.

The USU student is a very unique, Scheuring said of his own mentees, Very operationally focused, they may not have the experience yet but taking them out into the field, seeing them use all the skills theyve learned in a very demanding, fatiguing, compromised environment and having them perform at high levels? Its super rewarding.

Scheuring thinks that this operational focus is an asset that the military brings to space medicine.

Being book smart is one thing, but you have to be boots on the ground, Scheuring said. You need doctors that understand the mission, the environment, the physiology, all the things that help successfully execute that mission.

As far as the future of space medicine and the military is concerned, Clark thinks there is still much to learn. You have to learn everything you possibly can about space to truly understand how to make it safer for those who follow, Clark said.

Clark hopes that his research on space accidents and the students he is mentoring will aid in the mission of safer space travel. Scheuring, on the other hand, is more unsure about the logistics of space medicines future. But he does know that his students will be a major part of it.

I would like to think that well have [Department of Defense] flight surgeons, space surgeons, and astronauts come out of this program one day where this was their first exposure to NASA, Scheuring said. Youre going to have a couple dozen graduates who have operational exposure, which otherwise never existed.

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Space Medicine: Military docs help to explore the final frontier - Stripes Japan