Can private spaceflight benefit more than just a lucky few?

For decades, scientists have been studying how the human body reacts to space and developing methods to counteract the worst of the effects.

But if we want all of humanity to one day have access to space, then there’s a problem. The only people who have traditionally been studied in space are space agency astronauts, who are only a small subset of the population. They are selected specifically to be physically fit, without underlying health conditions, and to be of working age. They are also, historically — and to some extent, currently — overwhelmingly white men.

This means that we still have very little idea what the effects of space flight might be on people with diabetes, for example, or heart conditions. That’s not to mention how factors like previous training play into how the human body handles space conditions.

That’s why data from commercial crew members, or space tourists, could be valuable. Although space flights are enormously and prohibitively expensive for all except a lucky few, those who do go to space represent a potentially broader pool of space travelers who could reveal how space flight affects those from a range of backgrounds and with different health conditions.

At Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Space Medicine, an institute called TRISH (Translational Research Institute for Space Health) is aiming to make use of this broader pool, by collecting data from commercial space missions on the effects of space flight on human health.

We spoke to Jimmy Wu, TRISH deputy director and chief engineer and assistant professor at Baylor, about the program and the potential for commercial missions to benefit humanity beyond the lucky few who can afford to travel to space.

All data is good data

SpaceX

Wu helps run a program called EXPAND (Enhancing eXploration Platforms and ANalog Definition), which is building a database of health information collected from participants in missions like SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn, Inspiration4, and the three Axiom Space missions. Just recently, they also started working with Blue Origin, collecting data from the NS-28 New Shepard mission.

Even though New Shepard missions are suborbital, meaning that they travel to the boundary of space rather than going into orbit, and are short missions of just around 10 minutes or so, Wu and his colleagues saw the opportunity to get more scientifically valuable data.

“Even though it’s becoming more and more common, humans going into space, it’s still a fairly rare thing,” said Wu. “So, any opportunity that humans go into space, we don’t want to forsake a chance to be able to do some science on them.”

The recent NS-28 mission participants were fitted with sensors that are attached to the chest, and that monitor vital signs like heart rate, respiratory rate, and skin temperature. An important feature of these sensors was that they had to be unobtrusive and easy to operate, particularly because the crew got so little time to experience space flight.

“We’re very intentional about the devices that we use to collect the data. We want it to be as low-burden, unobtrusive, and passive as possible, so that the crew doesn’t have to interact with it. They can just enjoy the experience,” Wu explained. If someone only has 10 minutes to experience weightlessness, for example, they aren’t going to want to mess around with cables and devices and performing complex operations.

“We’ve finally hit that inflection point where the technology has caught up,” Wu said. This allows them to collect high-quality data in a passive way that doesn’t require a skilled or trained technician to operate the sensor device.

Space is bad for the body

Spaceflight participant Anna Menon tests a portable ultrasound device as part of the TRISH-sponsored research complement for Polaris Dawn. Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH)

This points to another aspect of this research: it’s all optional. TRISH invites commercial crew members to participate, but they are entirely free to say no, whether that’s because of not wanting to deal with the hassle, or due to concerns about their medical privacy.

Wu said that they have had people decline to participate in the studies, but for most crew members, the idea of being able to contribute to science is part of the appeal.

There’s also a degree of personal risk involved in any space travel. There’s not just the danger of any launch or landing, but also the many unknowns that still exist around health in space.

“We have very limited data of understanding how the body changes in space flight,” Wu said, so there is a degree of responsibility that the team feels in conveying those potential health risks to participants.

“We want them to be aware that going to space is bad for the body,” Wu said. “I think a good Earth-based analogy would be, you don’t just go and summit Everest, right? You’ve got to do the due diligence to make sure that you’re safe and doing it right.”

The range of health effects known from space flight include muscle atrophy and loss of bone mass (which must be mitigated with frequent exercise), cardiovascular effects, and worsening eyesight. These affect astronauts who stay on the International Space Station for months at a time, for example, and the effects tend to recede once they return to Earth.

But even a short trip to space of a few hours or a few days, like typical space tourism flights, could have health effects. At this early stage of understanding, space travel isn’t something that should be undertaken lightly.

“We don’t want the misconception of going to space that it’s like you and I going on an airplane ride,” Wu said.

A wider pool of people

SpaceX

Part of the promise of this approach to research is that it can broaden the pool of people from whom we have data about health during spaceflight.

The SpaceX Inspiration4 mission, for example, included Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant and survivor of childhood bone cancer who uses a prosthetic leg. Arceneaux was the youngest American to travel to space at age 29, and the first person in space to use a prosthetic limb. Another recent commercial mission from Blue Origin included crew member Ed Dwight, the first Black U.S. astronaut candidate, who at age 90 became the oldest person to travel to space.

Age is an interesting factor in space health, as it is not always the risk factor you might assume. In most cases, after childhood, people’s health declines as they get older and they become more susceptible to health conditions. But there are some conditions in space health in which older age can be a protective factor.

Exposure to radiation is a major concern for deep space missions in particular, and there is evidence that being older can confer a protective benefit against its effects. “Being older,actually might be of benefit, particularly for radiation exposure,” Wu said. “So if you’re younger and you go into space, and you’re exposed, that damage that your body takes o,n you carry for the rest of your life.”

This can include damage to the reproductive system, for example, which may be less of a concern for older adults who have already have a family and don’t plan on having more children. “So there could be benefits of going to space later, because you don’t have to worry about these other lifestyle risks,” Wu said.

The diversity of human experience

The point of this research isn’t only to figure out how wealthy tourists manage in space, but also to bring real benefits to people on Earth. Developing portable, easy to use medical monitoring technology with minimal power requirements is important for making health care accessible in remote or underserved places on Earth as well as in space, and Wu said he personally is driven by a desire to improve health care equity for everyone, not just those with means.

But with commercial missions still being so expensive, is the pool of commercial fliers really more diverse than that of space agency astronauts? “I think it’s still too early to see that,” Wu said, given the still small number of people who have flown on commercial missions in the last few years, “but I think we can kind of eyeball and start seeing those trends that are going in the desirable direction.”

The Polaris Dawn mission, for example, included two men and two women, an unusual example of gender parity in space missions. And commercial missions have included historical firsts, such as when Sian Proctor became the first Black woman to pilot a spacecraft in the Inspiration4 mission.

As well as gender and racial diversity, and a wider range of ages, Wu pointed out that there is also interest in seeing how people from different career backgrounds fare in space. Most space agency astronauts are from military, science, or engineering backgrounds. But commercial crew members could be businesspeople, politicians, educators, or artists.

“Are we going to do more than just science and exploration that we’ve historically have done with human spaceflight?” Wu wondered. “Are we starting to create art in space? To create culture in space? These things that are very human.”

And before anyone can thrive in space, fundamentally, they have to be healthy. Health in space isn’t just a research interest, but a basic requirement for all other activities there.

“We just need more and more people in space,” Wu said, “because we’ve got to understand the wide breadth of human existence and experience.”