Space Medicine: Medical Astrosociology in the Sickbay

[Abstract]. As human beings increasingly participate in outer space through their efforts dedicated to exploration, habitation, recreation, and exploitation of resources – in terms of the frequency of missions, the distance travelled, and the number of human beings participating – the importance of coping with their health needs will increase proportionally. The space environment exposes the human body to forces not experienced on the Earth. Examples include variable gravity fields and high radiation levels. We will need to focus more on space medicine and its implications. Even now, plans for professional astronauts to live and work on the Moon and eventually on Mars make medical issues more important than ever within the space community. More needs to be investigated about microgravity and its effects on the human body since long-duration space exploration presents the issue of long-term exposure to weightless conditions and harmful radiation. Additionally, it will become more important to society in general terms due to the growing need to educate and train physicians specializing in space and extreme environmental medicine – as well as astrosociologists who will specialize in these areas for reasons that transcend pure biology. For example, a great many of these implications involve ethnical questions related to risk, the acceptable allocation of resources, and other issues touching on social, cultural, psychological, and psychosocial considerations. In this context, astrosociology becomes relevant. Herein, the author preliminarily discusses some of the significant issues from an astrosociological (or multidisciplinary social-scientific) perspective. The time is now right for bringing in astrosociological issues, as their relevance will only increase with time. Planners within the space community need to take heed of them in order to make informed decisions impossible from strictly a status quo biomedical perspective. They will need to collaborate with scientists specializing in medical astrosociology.