From scientists to science fiction fans, the concept of sending the first humans on a spaceflight to Mars has long captured the imagination.

The practical challenges of sending humans to Mars, on the other hand, can stagger the mind.

In addition to the technological and logistical hurdles that come with a 140 million mile, 21-month trip to Mars and back again, there are many unknowns about how such a journey could impact the health of the crew.

These hazards could be significant, and include:

• The prolonged effects of weightlessness

• Exposure to cosmic radiation

• The psychological effects of long-term isolation and confinement

• The stress and communication challenges of being far from Earth

• Living and working in a closed environment for extended time

So how do you prepare astronauts for a long journey into the unknown? And how can we make that trip as safe as possible?

Aleksandra Stankovic, PhD

Those are some of the questions being investigated by Aleksandra Stankovic, PhD, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital and member of the faculty of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Stankovic is part of the Neural Systems Group at Mass General, a small team of researchers who conduct NASA-funded research projects related to the challenges of space travel, including developing and validating portable brain imaging technologies and learning more about the prolonged effects of weightlessness.

She uses analog environments—real or manmade settings that mimic the conditions of space—to learn more about the effects of long-term spaceflight on human health and brain functioning.

The work of Stankovic and others could one day make that first flight to Mars a reality.

Their findings could also benefit patients here on earth who must remain isolated or confined for long periods of time, including organ transplant patients, geriatric patients and individuals living and working in extreme environments such as the Antarctic.

Image of the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) by Bill Stafford and Robert Markowitz (courtesy of NASA)

How Performance Changes During Long Term Spaceflight

Stankovic and colleagues recently studied analog “astronauts” participating in 45-day simulated space missions at NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA), to learn how operating performance changes over the course of a mission.

Located at the Johnson Space Center, HERA is a 650-square foot habitat designed to serve as an analog for the confinement and remote conditions of space exploration.

The team used a tool called the Real Time Performance Monitoring Platform to assess two measures of human performance on a simulated lunar landing task—accuracy, which was measured by flight path control; and workload, which was measured by how long it took participants to respond to a secondary communications light while piloting the lunar lander.

When it came to accuracy, the team found a surprising result. Instead of continuing to improve over time as the analog crew members gained more experience piloting the lander, accuracy peaked in the middle-late quartiles of the mission, then started to degrade towards baseline.

By contrast, participants showed consistent improvement when it came to managing workload—becoming progressively better at responding to the communications light while piloting the lander.

The results suggest that time-in-mission has a disruptive effect on some, but not all, aspects of task performance, says Stankovic.

Larger studies are needed to confirm these results, but the findings could help astronauts to better manage workload over long trips.

From Outer Space to Clinical Space

While it may seem unusual to have a team of space researchers working at a hospital and not a space center, there is a long history of innovations from the space program being translated into new or improved medical devices and technologies for patients.

This includes everything from ear thermometers to automatic insulin pumps to implantable heart defibrillators.

“Sometimes the prevailing thought about space research is that ‘this is cool space stuff but why does it matter?’” Stankovic says. “I think what we really want to highlight are the translational applications.”

“That’s a really exciting thing about the Mass General ecosystem in general—you’re constantly collaborating with folks and finding these cross-disciplinary connections.”