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By NASA
NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague pedals on the Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization (CEVIS), an exercise cycle located aboard the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module. CEVIS provides aerobic and cardiovascular conditioning through recumbent (leaning back position) or upright cycling activities.NASA Lee esta historia en español aquí.
The International Space Station is humanity’s home in space and a research station orbiting about 250 miles above the Earth. NASA and its international partners have maintained a continuous human presence aboard the space station for more than 24 years, conducting research that is not possible on Earth.
The people living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory also are part of the research being conducted, helping to address complex human health issues on Earth and prepare humanity for travel farther than ever before, including the Moon and Mars.
Here are a few frequently asked questions about how NASA and its team of medical physicians, psychologists, nutritionists, exercise scientists, and other specialized caretakers ensure astronauts’ health and fitness aboard the orbiting laboratory.
How long is a typical stay aboard the International Space Station?
A typical mission to the International Space Station lasts about six months, but can vary based on visiting spacecraft schedules, mission priorities, and other factors. NASA astronauts also have remained aboard the space station for longer periods of time. These are known as long-duration missions, and previous missions have given NASA volumes of data about long-term spaceflight and its effects on the human body, which the agency applies to any crewed mission.
During long-duration missions, NASA’s team of medical professionals focus on optimizing astronauts’ physical and behavioral health and their performance to help ensure mission success. These efforts also are helping NASA prepare for future human missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
How does NASA keep astronauts healthy while in space?
NASA has a team of medical doctors, psychologists, and others on the ground dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of astronauts before, during, and after each space mission. NASA assigns physicians with specialized training in space medicine, called flight surgeons, to each crew once named to a mission. Flight surgeons oversee the health care and medical training as crew members prepare for their mission, and they monitor the crew’s health before, during, and after their mission to the space station.
How does NASA support its astronauts’ mental and emotional well-being while in space?
The NASA behavioral health team provides individually determined psychological support services for crew members and their families during each mission. Ensuring astronauts can thrive in extreme environments starts as early as the astronaut selection process, in which applicants are evaluated on competencies such as adaptability and resilience. Astronauts receive extensive training to help them use self-assessment tools and treatments to manage their behavioral health. NASA also provides training in expeditionary skills to prepare every astronaut for missions on important competencies, such as self-care and team care, communication, and leadership and followership skills.
To help maintain motivation and morale aboard the space station, astronauts can email, call, and video conference with their family and friends, receive crew care packages aboard NASA’s cargo resupply missions, and teleconference with a psychologist, if needed.
How does microgravity affect astronaut physical health?
In microgravity, without the continuous load of Earth’s gravity, there are many changes to the human body. NASA understands many of the human system responses to the space environment, including adaptations to bone density, muscle, sensory-motor, and cardiovascular health, but there is still much to learn. These spaceflight effects vary from astronaut to astronaut, so NASA flight surgeons regularly monitor each crew member’s health during a mission and individualize diet and fitness routines to prioritize health and fitness while in space.
Why do astronauts exercise in space?
Each astronaut aboard the orbiting laboratory engages in specifically designed, Earth-like exercise plans. To maintain their strength and endurance, crew members are scheduled for two and a half hours of daily exercise to support muscle, bone, aerobic, and sensorimotor health. Current equipment onboard the space station includes the ARED (Advanced Resistive Exercise Device), which mimics weightlifting; a treadmill, called T2; and the CEVIS (Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System) for cardiovascular exercise.
What roles do food and nutrition play in supporting astronaut health?
Nutrition plays a critical role in maintaining an astronaut’s health and optimal performance before, during, and after their mission. Food also plays a psychosocial role during an astronaut’s long-duration stay aboard the space station. Experts working in NASA’s Space Food Systems Laboratory at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston develop foods that are nutritious and appetizing. Crew members also have the opportunity to supplement the menu with personal favorites and off-the-shelf items, which can provide a taste of home.
NASA astronaut and Expedition 71 Flight Engineer Tracy C. Dyson is pictured in the galley aboard the International Space Station’s Unity module showing off food packets from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).NASA How does NASA know whether astronauts are getting the proper nutrients?
NASA’s nutritional biochemistry dietitians and scientists determine the nutrients (vitamins, minerals, calories) the astronauts require while in space. This team tracks what each crew member eats through a tablet-based tracking program, which each astronaut completes daily. The data from the app is sent to the dietitians weekly to monitor dietary intake. Analyzing astronaut blood and urine samples taken before, during, and after space missions is a crucial part of studying how their bodies respond to the unique conditions of spaceflight. These samples provide valuable insight into how each astronaut adapts to microgravity, radiation, and other factors that affect human physiology in space.
How do astronauts train to work together while in space?
In addition to technical training, astronauts participate in team skills training. They learn effective group living skills and how to look out for and support one another. Due to its remote and isolated nature, long-duration spaceflight can make teamwork difficult. Astronauts must maintain situational awareness and implement the flight program in an ever-changing environment. Therefore, effective communication is critical when working as a team aboard station and with multiple support teams on the ground. Astronauts also need to be able to communicate complex information to people with different professional backgrounds. Ultimately, astronauts are people living and working together aboard the station and must be able to do a highly technical job and resolve any interpersonal issues that might arise.
What happens if there is a medical emergency on the space station?
All astronauts undergo medical training and have regular contact with a team of doctors closely monitoring their health on the ground. NASA also maintains a robust pharmacy and a suite of medical equipment onboard the space station to treat various conditions and injuries. If a medical emergency requires a return to Earth, the crew will return in the spacecraft they launched aboard to receive urgent medical care on the ground.
Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is seen resting and talking with NASA ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano, kneeling left, NASA Flight Surgeon Josef Schmid, red hat, and NASA Chief of the Astronaut Office Joe Acaba, outside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft after he landed with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023.NASA/Bill Ingalls Learn more about NASA’s Human Health and Performance Directorate at:
www.nasa.gov/hhp
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By Space Force
Space Force officials have selected 14 senior master sergeants and 25 master sergeants for promotion in the 24S9 and 25S8 promotion cycles, respectively.
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By NASA
The overarching purpose of the OCKO is to cultivate and sustain a learning culture at Goddard in support of mission success. We have instituted various processes and programs for lessons learned and critical knowledge identification, sharing, and application. The focus of the OCKO is to promote local learning practices that enhances domain-specific expertise within an expanded framework of how NASA works. The Goddard OCKO provides leadership, coordination and support to center organizations to effectively identify lessons and critical knowledge that can be used to support mission execution.
Mission success at Goddard is driven by many factors including, but not limited to, teamwork, leadership, decision making and risk-informed prioritization of lessons. The OCKO has developed many technical case studies that touch on broad organizational issues, project implementation, technology and engineering development, procurement and contract management challenges, and other topics that contribute to mission success. Our learning programs and knowledge sharing activities are designed to transfer the experiences, technical wisdom and values embedded in our policies, procedures and processes.
The OCKO, whether through formal dissenting opinion processes, pause-and-learn exercises, or project reflective learning sessions, encourages our workforce to speak up in support of mission success. We promote a healthy culture where project teams discuss major events, milestones and reviews to ascertain “what happened and why it happened,” how to sustain strengths, and how to improve on weaknesses to enable collective discovery of contextual lessons for institutional learning.
As the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, it is my sincere desire to help assure that Goddard operates as a learning organization to enhance the likelihood of mission success.
Moses Adoko, Chief Knowledge Officer
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Callista PuchmeyerCredit: NASA Cleveland State University (CSU) inducted Callista Puchmeyer, chief counsel at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, into the CSU College of Law Hall of Fame during a ceremony on Nov. 1.
Puchmeyer provides expert legal advice to NASA Glenn’s center director and other senior leaders. She also manages Glenn’s Office of the General Counsel, a diverse legal staff that advises Glenn clients on a broad spectrum of federal matters.
Established in 2017, CSU’s Law Hall of Fame honors the outstanding contributions of its distinguished alumni, faculty, staff, friends, and community leaders.
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By NASA
NASA HLS (Human Landing System) Program strategic communicator and U.S. Navy Reservist Public Affairs Officer Joe Vermette brings a wealth of public service to Artemis communication activities. NASA/Ken Hall Coming from a Navy family, Vermette was inspired to military service by the example of his brother, uncles and father, who admired President John Kennedy’s call to land on the Moon and for citizens to do what they can for our country. Photo courtesy Joe Vermette While some stand on the sidelines and witness history, others are destined to play a part in it. And then there are those who document it, bringing the people, the action, the images, the words, and the personalities to the world. U. S. Navy Reservist Public Affairs Officer and program strategic communicator for NASA’s HLS (Human Landing System) Joe Vermette stands at the nexus of all three.
Spurred to action to serve his country by the events of September 11, 2001; veteran of numerous overseas deployments with the Navy, and responsible for communicating NASA’s return to the Moon through the Artemis campaign, Vermette has played a part in history while he communicates humanity’s greatest endeavors to the world.
Vermette joined NASA in August 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he was a regional communications director. Right off the bat, he rose to the challenge of learning about space exploration, Artemis, and communicating the new way the HLS Program would work with commercial providers for Moon landing services, rather than specifying spacecraft to be built.
“I was used to being right in the middle of the action,” Vermette said. “The pandemic challenged me to work in a new way. At the same time, NASA and HLS were working in a new way, having just brought on our first commercial provider, SpaceX,” he said. In May 2023, the HLS Program brought on a second commercial provider, Blue Origin, for human landing services.
After earning a degree in military history with a minor in communications from Florida State University, Vermette worked as a video journalist and spot writer for CNN. But it was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that really shaped his career in government service. “Three weeks later, I went down to the recruiting office and began the process of joining the military. I saw an opportunity to help the country in the best capacity I could,” Vermette said.
Since then, his career has been dotted by active deployments, from the Middle East to Europe to stateside; onboard Navy ships, at U.S. Central Command, at U. S. Special Operations Command, and more.
NASA’s HLS Program and Artemis have benefitted from Vermette’s experience and steady hand helping guide strategic communications since 2020. He recently answered the call to active duty again but intends to return to NASA once his military obligations are fulfilled.
“NASA is a different world than the military or disaster response. But I’ve been fortunate enough to see – and communicate about – government success stories in all three arenas, Vermette said. “Seeing NASA put astronauts on the Moon again will be the best ‘mission complete’ I could have.”
With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.
For more on HLS, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/human-landing-system
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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