there are up to 100 medical conditions that can affect an astronaut’s health
the development of a predictive and personalized medicine is key to solving the challenges that the future manned missions to Mars, for being millions of miles from Earth, astronauts will need to be autonomous when it comes to requiring medical and psychological help.
According to the doctor Emmanuel Urquieta, Scientific Deputy Director of the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), There are up 100 medical conditions that can affect the health of an astronaut during a space mission, so training and development of new materials and tools is essential to meet the needs of crews.
“Because of the distance, it can take up to 20 or 40 minutes to delay communications (…) We have to think about how we are going to predict a disease “, confirmed the scientist.
At the same time, he noted that communication between crews and stations on Earth is one of the main challenges of the trip to the Red Planet, in addition to the complications arising from weightlessness and cosmic radiation.
In recent years, NASA has compiled medical information obtained from space missions by the development of artificial intelligence which is capable of detect abnormalities in the vital signs of astronauts and be able to predict the onset of disease, Giving a wider margin for its treatment and solution.
As for the problems related to the harmful amounts of radiation in space, he explained that efforts are focused on genetic modification and editing, in order to provide space travelers with greater resistance to these elements.