Private Spaceflight: A New Landscape for Dealing with Medical Risk

As NASA and other space agencies make plans to proceed with human exploration missions beyond low earth orbit (LEO), the private sector, including Space X, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Space Adventures and others, echo these plans with initiatives of their own to send humans further into space. Development of more sub-orbital flight opportunities, orbital flight opportunities to LEO and even higher risk endeavors will certainly result in exposure to medical risks for an expanding and heterogeneous population of civilians. To date, a handful of "space tourists" have flown to the International Space Station (ISS), at their own expense, ushering in a new era in which anyone with reasonably good health and even those with physical disability may consider becoming space travelers. Indeed, medical and behavioral issues of healthy, professional astronauts, have not been problematic on short orbital flights. However, recent attempts to test the potential limitations in astronauts on extended duration orbital flights in preparation for future missions beyond LEO raise concern about individual differences in ability to tolerate the hazardous spaceflight environment. Given the rapid development of opportunities for non-professionals and the employees of private companies to travel into space, this is an appropriate time to consider the development of selection strategies for non-government space travelers, including the development of genomic and other modern tools to assess susceptibility to spaceflight risk.