THE BIOASTRONAUTICS CRITICAL PATH ROADMA P (REV. 2): BIOMEDICAL RISK ASSESSMENT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION MI SSIONS

The Bioastronautics Cri tical Path Roadmap (BCPR) project was initiated in 1997 to identify biomedical risks in human space exploration, to document and guide risk resolution and to communicate to investigators those human life sciences research goals most relevant to NASA. In a nticipation of the President's new initiative for space explorations announced in January 2004, BCPR discipline -area experts and bioastronautics managers from NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) jointly established sixteen tea ms to consider the biomedical risks inherent in likely future mission scenarios in the terms of their initiating events, risk factors and outcomes; enabling questions; and temporal and technology interrelationships. These discipline -based teams are in fiv e major categories: Advanced Human Support Technologies; Autonomous Medical Care; Behavioral Health and Performance; Human Health and Countermeasures; and Radiation Impacts and Countermeasures. Three probable future piloted space flight scenarios are anal yzed: one - year continuous tours of duty aboard the International Space Station; one -month excursions to the lunar surface; and thirty -month expeditions to Mars. The BCPR project also addresses processes for prioritizing, implementing and assessing the tas ks to mitigate the identified risks. After the conclusion of a year -long review of its content and processes by committees of the National Research Council, it is expected that the BCPR will guide NASA's assessment and mitigation of the risks to astronau t health and operational performance during increasingly challenging space exploration missions over the next few decades.