A data collection programme for improving healthcare in UK human spaceflight ventures

Abstract

Over the next decade the number of humans venturing beyond Earth is projected to rapidly increase in both quantity and diversity. Humans will regularly fly to the International Space Station until it is decommissioned by 2031, will return to the Moon by 2025 via the Artemis programme, and will fly to space via commercial ventures. Spaceflight presents a hazardous environment for human health. To understand spaceflight-associated health risks further and to increase safety via advanced healthcare approaches, including personalised medicine, more data must be collected. Importantly, this data must be derived from a diverse cohort of participants and a range of mission formats. We propose that the UK should start to consider all citizens venturing into space as potential participants from which health and biological data could be consensually collected. Importantly, we believe that this routine data collection programme should adopt a similar strategy to the UK National Health Service and the UK Biobank, by including "omics" data for scientific and healthcare purposes. We consider how such a world-leading programme, kick-started via a pilot study, might be realised through appropriate policy design, including which measures to collect, when to collect them, and unique ethical considerations pertaining to the spacefaring population.