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Concept
Space medicine
Summary
Space medicine is a specialized field, which developed from Aerospace medicine, that focuses on the acute medical care of astronauts and spaceflight participants. The spaceflight environment poses many unique stressors to the human body, including G forces, microgravity, unusual atmospheres such as low pressure or high carbon dioxide, and space radiation. Space medicine applies emergency medicine, acute care medicine, critical care medicine, interventional radiology, radiology, austere medicine, and toxicology perspectives treat and prepare for medical problems in space. This expertise is then used to inform vehicle systems design to minimize the risk to human health and performance while meeting mission objectives.
Astronautical hygiene is the application of science and technology to the prevention or control of exposure to the hazards that may cause astronaut ill health. Both these sciences work together to ensure that astronauts work in a safe environment. Medical consequences such as possible blindness and bone loss have been associated with human spaceflight.
In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.
Hubertus Strughold (1898–1987), a former Nazi physician and physiologist, was brought to the United States after World War II as part of Operation Paperclip. He first coined the term "space medicine" in 1948 and was the first and only Professor of Space Medicine at the School of Aviation Medicine (SAM) at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. In 1949, Strughold was made director of the Department of Space Medicine at the SAM (which is now the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He played an important role in developing the pressure suit worn by early American astronauts. He was a co-founder of the Space Medicine Branch of the Aerospace Medical Association in 1950.
Official source
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