Development of a Novel Space Medicine Review Framework to Facilitate Safe Public Access to Suborbital Spaceflights

摘要

Commercial suborbital spaceflight companies are drawing closer to launching operations. These operators will presumably seek to maximize participant numbers whilst maintaining flight safety. Space agencies have historically operated a comprehensive process of medical flight certification. However, these have been designed to be stringent and involve a range of invasive, expensive and time-consuming assessments. As yet, no appropriate and streamlined medical flight certification has been developed to approve and prepare passengers for short-duration commercial suborbital spaceflight. Therefore, the space industry must consider how medical evaluation can be performed that meets the needs of commercial suborbital spaceflight operators and customers. This is particularly relevant given the possibility of providing access to aged or disabled individuals and people with pre-existing medical conditions. This outlines a streamlined space medicine review framework that will safely facilitate broader access to space on suborbital flights. This framework optimizes and improves the space medicine review process. It incorporates established space medicine methods, inflight countermeasures, and incorporates new decision support tools intended to evolve with the increasing body of space medicine data.