Developing Advanced Human Support Technologies for Planetary Exploration Missions

The United States Vision for Space Exploration calls for sending robots and humans to explore the Earth’s moon, the planet Mars, and beyond. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is developing a s et of design reference missions that will provide further detail to these plans. Lunar missions are expected to provide a stepping stone, through operational research and evaluation, in developing the knowledge base necessary to send crews on long duratio n missions to Mars and other distant destinations. The NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD), in its program of bioastronautics research, manages the development of technologies that maintain human life, health, and performance in space. Us ing a systems engineering process and risk management methods, ESMD’s Life Support & Habitation (LSH) Program selects and performs research and technology development in several critical areas and transfers the results of its efforts to NASA exploration mi ssion/systems development programs in the form of developed technologies and new knowledge about the capabilities and constraints of systems required to support human existence beyond Low Earth Orbit. LSH efforts include the areas of advanced environmenta l monitoring and control, extravehicular activity, food technologies, life support systems, space human factors engineering, and systems integration of all these elements. The LSH Program provides a structured set of deliverable products to meet the needs of exploration programs. These products reduce the gaps that exist in our knowledge of and capabilities for human support for long duration, remote space missions. They also reduce the performance gap between the efficiency of current space systems and the greater efficiency that must be achieved to make human planetary exploration missions economically and logistically feasible. In conducting this research and technology development program, it is necessary for LSH technologists and program managers to develop a common currency for decision making and the allocation of funding. A high level assessment is made of both the knowledge gaps and the system performance gaps across the program’s technical project portfolio. This allows decision making that as sures proper emphasis areas and provides a key measure of annual technological progress, as exploration mission plans continue to mature.