Building a Space-Faring Civilization: Advancing the Renaissance of Science, Medicine and Human Performance in Civilian Spaceflight

Building a Space-Faring Civilization: Advancing the Renaissance of Science, Medicine, and Human Performance in Civilian Spaceflight explores an expanding, unique new trajectory for humankind—the settlement of space by civilians. For the first time in history, average humans can contemplate journeys to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars with the idea of space settlement as a plausible reality. As the numbers of spacefaring civilians grow, medical personnel will be asked to meet their complex needs through an ever-expanding discipline—space medicine. But this will require a rapidly advancing science to address what some are calling the next great age in space. This book gathers some of the most accomplished thought leaders in the field of human spaceflight today. Collectively, they helped build the international space station (ISS), develop the field of orbital medicine, guide the development of commercial orbital platforms, plan missions to the Moon and Mars, and forge the innovation necessary for the commercial spaceflight industry to thrive today. The result is an exceptional source of wisdom, experience, and insight surrounding the current biomedical, technical, industrial, legal, and social implications of what is emerging as a true renaissance period in human history.

Table of Contents:
1. Space: relaunching Icarus 2. Civilian spaceflight: inspiration from the arts of the Italian Renaissance 3. Space—and the third great age of discovery 4. What do we think about when we think about settling space? An inclusive perspective 5. Galileo and space colonization 6. Vast is not infinite: challenges to governance and justice due to concentrated and finite space resources 7. The frontier of mining space resources and preparing human explorers and workers for those operations 8. What the first commercial space station means for humanity 9. The human experience of conducting engineering and construction operations in space 10. Humanity in the orbital age 11. Space architecture and the four futures of human space flight 12. Insights into spaceflight team performance gleaned from the exploration of challenging environments on Earth 13. Human Systems Integration: insights from exploring the sky and space: mitigation strategies for future space operations 14. Risk and systems knowledge in human spaceflight 15. Preparing for the unpredictable: facilitating multisystem resilience in human spaceflight 16. Twin studies, biobanks, and genome engineering to enable long-duration spaceflight 17. Using functionally characterized networks in the application of precision medicine in spaceflight 18. The Astronaut Digital Twin: accelerating discovery and countermeasure development in the optimization of human space exploration 19. Lessons learned—Part I: Medical screening, standards, and in-flight medical incidents, events, or risks 20. Lessons learned part II: in-flight medical equipment, capabilities, and countermeasures; and new medical paradigms for the future flights to low earth orbit and beyond! 21. Harnessing neuroplasticity’s features for civilian spaceflight through remediation and treatment 22. The critical imperatives of behavioral resilience in civilian space flight travelers 23. The human research program for civilian spaceflight 24. Biotechnology for a spacefaring civilization—necessary and challenging 25. Foundations of a Space Bill of Rights