Event Details

Surviving Space: Pushing the Brain’s Limits – GL Brown Prize Lecture by Professor Damian Bailey

Human spaceflight is entering a transformative era of sustainable exploration, driven by the rise in space tourism and national agencies' ambitious plans for extended missions beyond low Earth orbit. In collaboration with commercial and international partners, the Artemis program aims to establish a lunar outpost culminating in the horizon goal of a crewed mission to Mars as early as the late 2040s. This will be the most ambitious adventure humankind has ever embarked upon, as we look to transition from a terrestrial to extraterrestrial spacefaring species. However, the journey to, and habitation on, the red planet will pose unique physiological challenges, placing unprecedented demands on crew health, performance and medical needs. Indeed, there is no environment more unique or challenging to humans than outer space. Astronauts will have to survive the full force of the space ‘exposome’ — altered oxygen and gravity, prolonged isolation and confinement, living in a closed environment and higher doses of cosmic radiation, for up to 1,000 days on a planet located ~55 to 400 million km from Earth. This GL Brown Prize Lecture will discuss the unique integrative physiological challenges posed by deep space exploration with a specific focus on the astronaut’s brain including how we characterise and contain risk. It will draw upon terrestrial models of extreme physiology that explore the brain’s tolerable limits, to better understand how we can adapt and overcome environmental extremes that would otherwise be considered incompatible with ‘ordinary’ human life. It will also provide personal insight into the exciting work undertaken by space agencies to support interdisciplinary research, placing physiology centre stage for mission success. From new materials and medical breakthroughs to improved environmental and telemetric health monitoring, resource management and countermeasure discovery, the knowledge gained through exploration science has unrivalled translational potential that can help address global challenges and diseases here on Earth. Space physiology has never been more alive, relevant and exciting — per ardua ad astra!

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