A Report of the Committee on Space Biology and Medicine*

The core of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) life sciences research lies in understanding the effects of the space environment on human physiology and on biology in plants and animals. The strategy for achieving that goal as originally enunciated in the 1987 Goldberg report, A Strategy for Space Biology and Medical Science for the 1980s and 1990s,¹ remains generally valid today. However, during the past decade there has been an explosion of new scientific understanding catalyzed by advances in molecular and cell biology and genetics, a substantially increased amount of information from flight experiments, and the approach of new opportunities for long-term space-based research on the International Space Station. A reevaluation of opportunities and priorities for NASA-supported research in the biological and biomedical sciences is therefore desirable.

The strategy outlined in the Goldberg report had two main purposes: “(1) to identify and describe those areas of fundamental scientific investigation in space biology and medicine that are both exciting and important to pursue and (2) to develop the foundation of knowledge and understanding that will make long-term manned space habitation and/or exploration feasible.”² To achieve these purposes, the Goldberg report identified four major goals of space life sciences:

1. To describe and understand human adaptation to the space environment and readaptation upon return to earth.

2. To use the knowledge so obtained to devise procedures that will improve the health, safety, comfort, and performance of the astronauts.

3. To understand the role that gravity plays in the biological processes of both plants and animals.

4. To determine if any biological phenomenon that arises in an individual organism or small group of organisms is better studied in space than on earth.”³

These goals remain valid and form the basis of the present report.

Both the Goldberg report and the 1991 follow-up assessment, Assessment of Programs in Space Biology and Medicine 1991,⁴ emphasized basic research and the importance of vigorous ground-based programs aimed at addressing the fundamental mechanisms that underlie observed effects of the space environment on human physiology and other biological processes. The present report strongly reemphasizes that strategy and calls for an integrated, multidisciplinary approach that encompasses all levels of biological organization—the molecule, the cell, the organ system, and the whole organism—and employs the full range of modern experimental approaches from molecular and cellular biology to organismic physiology.

The sections that follow summarize the Committee on Space Biology and Medicine's priorities for NASA-supported research, its recommendations for high-priority research in individual disciplines, and its recommendations for overall priorities for NASA-sponsored research across disciplinary boundaries. The final section outlines significant concerns in the program and policy arena and offers related recommendations.

Taking into account budgetary realities and the need for clearly focused programs, the highest priority for NASA-supported research in space biology and medicine in the new century should be given to research meeting one of the following criteria:

1. Research aimed at understanding and ameliorating problems that may limit astronauts' ability to survive and/or function during prolonged space/light. Such studies include basic as well as applied research and ground-