Future Prospects
The sum of human experience has resulted in the accumulation of 58 solar years in space and a much better understanding of how the human body adapts. In the future, industrialisation of space and exploration of inner and outer planets will require humans to endure longer and longer periods in space. The majority of current data comes from missions of short duration and so some of the long-term physiological effects of living in space are still unknown. A round trip to Mars with current technology is estimated to involve at least 18 months in transit alone. Knowing how the human body reacts to such time periods in space is a vital part of the preparation for such journeys. On-board medical facilities need to be adequate for coping with any type of trauma or emergency as well as contain a huge variety of diagnostic and medical instruments in order to keep a crew healthy over a long period of time, as these will be the only facilities available on board a spacecraft for coping not only with trauma, but also with the adaptive responses of the human body in space.
At the moment only rigorously tested humans have experienced the conditions of space. If off-world colonization someday begins, many types of people will be exposed to these dangers, and the effects on the elderly and on the very young are completely unknown. Factors such as nutritional requirements and physical environments which have so far not been examined will become important. Overall, there is little data on the manifold effects of living in space, and this makes attempts toward mitigating the risks during a lengthy space habitation difficult. Test beds such as the ISS are presently being utilized to research some of these risks.
The environment of space is still largely unknown, and there will likely be as-yet-unknown hazards. Meanwhile, future technologies such as artificial gravity and more complex bioregenerative life support systems may someday be capable of mitigating some risks.
Read more about this topic: Effect Of Spaceflight On The Human Body
Famous quotes containing the words future and/or prospects:
“The future is just as much a condition of the present as is the past. “What shall be and must be is the ground of that which is.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)