Standardized Exercise Tests and Simulated Terrestrial Mission Task Performance.

Area of Science:

• Space medicine
• Human physiology
• Exercise science

Background:

• Space missions to asteroids, Moon, and Mars involve physically demanding tasks.
• Prolonged microgravity exposure negatively affects astronaut physiology and physical capacity.
• Assessing astronaut physical capabilities for mission success is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the association between aerobic fitness and muscular strength parameters.
• To determine the relationship between physical capacity and performance in simulated upper-body mission tasks.

Main Methods:

• 70 subjects performed two field tests: material transport and device operations.
• Measurements included running and arm cranking maximal oxygen uptake (Vo2max), gas exchange threshold (GET), critical speed (CS), and critical power (CP).
• Correlations between test duration and physiological measurements were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Critical power (CP) demonstrated the strongest correlation with the material transport test (r = -0.66).
• CP (r = -0.70) and critical speed (CS) were significant predictors for the device operations test.
• Arm cranking Vo2peak and peak power output were also significant predictors for both tests.

Conclusions:

• Arm cranking performance is strongly associated with upper-body intensive mission tasks.
• Evaluating astronaut physical capacity requires consideration of the specific demands of mission tasks.
• Critical power is a key indicator for predicting performance in physically demanding space missions.