Allie Hayman News

With Polaris Dawn’s launch, Colorado scientists will study vision changes in space

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 15:04:06 +0000

With Polaris Dawn’s launch, Colorado scientists will study vision changes in space Jeff Zehnder Mon, 09/16/2024 - 09:04

During SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn's multi-day high-altitude mission, which rocketed to space on Sept. 10, the crew will conduct health impact research to better understand spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). Researchers from CU Boulder and the CU Anschutz Medical Campus are right there with them. Or at least their equipment and expertise will be.

The team is sending up specialized optical equipment to gather data from astronauts’ eyes and will analyze the results during and after the five-day mission.

The research is a collaboration between Allie Hayman, associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder, and Prem Subramanian, chief of neuro-ophthalmology at the CU School of Medicine.

Torin Clark, associate professor of aerospace engineering sciences at CU Boulder, is leading separate research from the ground for the Polaris Dawn mission about how astronauts experience motion sickness and other illusory sensations during space travel.

For some time, astronauts have noticed vision changes during long-duration space missions. Since 1998, NASA has sent astronauts to the International Space Station with “space anticipation glasses,” which have adjustable refraction settings to meet changing vision needs, similar to binoculars. In 2011, NASA began conducting MRI scans on astronauts following missions, which revealed potentially increased pressure in their brains as well as optic disc swelling, or papilledema, in more than half of the astronauts.

On Polaris Dawn, the researchers are sending up SENSIMED Triggerfish lenses, which are “smart” contact lenses to track eye pressure fluctuation and changes in cornea dimensions in glaucoma patients. CU Department of Ophthalmology Adjoint Professor Kaweh Mansouri, MD, contributed to the development of these lenses, which will monitor astronauts’ eyes during launch and as they transition to microgravity, a condition of apparent weightlessness. The lenses contain sensors that transmit data to an antenna and local storage device, enabling the researchers to collect and analyze data upon their return.

The team is also sending a device called the QuickSee, which will measure astronauts’ refractive error, when the shape of the eye changes and keeps light from focusing correctly on the retina.

Polaris Dawn crew members include Mission Commander Jared “Rook” Isaacman; Mission Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet; Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna “Walker” Menon; and Mission Specialist Sarah “Cooper” Gillis, who graduated from CU Boulder in 2017 with a degree in aerospace engineering sciences.

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Seminar: Measuring and mitigating the effects of spaceflight on human health and performance - Sept. 22

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:55:28 +0000

Seminar: Measuring and mitigating the effects of spaceflight on human health and performance - Sept. 22 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/18/2023 - 09:55

Allie Anderson
Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace
Friday, Sept. 22 | 10:40 a.m. | AERO 120

Abstract: As NASA’s priorities shift toward longer duration flights in deep space microgravity or on the surface of the Moon or Mars, the decrements to human health and performance will be exacerbated. This talk discusses our research to develop technologies to measure and mitigate the body’s adaptations to extreme stressors, with the primary motivation to advance human space exploration.

It will outline work in four core aerospace emphases: 1. Extravehicular activity (EVA), 2. Alternative reality (XR) technologies for spaceflight applications; 3. The spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS); and 4. Human resilience in isolated, confined, extreme (ICE) environments.

This research is addressing future EVA issues by pursuing paradigm-shifting technologies that enable planetary surface exploration. We are investigating novel ways to design spacecraft and train people to perform complex operational tasks through XR environments like virtual reality (VR).

Our research has also made contributions to SANS by investigating the acute physiological responses to countermeasures and developing technologies to investigate the syndrome’s etiology. Finally, our work investigates cognitive and behavioral health performance in ICE settings, including when humans team with autonomous systems.

Together, these aerospace applications span subdisciplines with in the fields of engineering, science, medicine. Thus, by focusing our research on human health and performance in extreme environments, this research is working to advance the state of the art for Earth-based applications in several diverse fields.

Bio: Allison Anderson is an Assistant Professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. She graduated in 2007 with a B.S. in Astronautics Engineering from the University of Southern California with a minor in Astronomy. She received an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. in Technology Policy in 2011 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Biomedical Engineering in 2014 from MIT. She received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute to study human space physiology at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

At the University of Colorado – Boulder she is also an Adjunct Professor in Integrative Physiology and an affiliated faculty member in the Biomedical Engineering program. Her work focuses on aerospace biomedical engineering, spacesuit design, wearable sensors, spacecraft habitat design, alternative reality technologies, and human physiology in extreme environments. Specifically, her work is directed toward enabling a sustained human presence in space. She is a member of the AIAA and ASMA.

As NASA’s priorities shift toward longer duration flights in deep space microgravity or on the surface of the Moon or Mars, the decrements to human health and performance will be exacerbated. This talk discusses...

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Researchers at CU Boulder advancing more trustworthy autonomous systems with U.S Air Force

Anonymous — Wed, 03 May 2023 15:25:08 +0000

Researchers at CU Boulder advancing more trustworthy autonomous systems with U.S Air Force Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/03/2023 - 09:25

Jeff Zehnder

Allie Anderson and Torin Clark at CU Boulder are conducting research into how humans and artificial intelligence systems work together.

The pair are part of a multi-university research team commissioned by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study trust in autonomous systems. It is an important and complex problem.

“Trust is a dynamic human state with multiple dimensions - it’s different for each individual and the specific system you’re using. Trusting a self-driving car if you want to go to sleep in the backseat is different than trusting Alexa to tell you the weather,” said Anderson, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The work has broad applications across the technological spectrum, but the Air Force is particularly interested due to increasing integration of autonomy in military systems and the uncertainties faced by soldiers using them, said Anderson.

“There are many applications where autonomous systems may be used and – particularly with space-based applications – the human isn’t onsite with a satellite to have additional context, and you can’t always get all the data in real-time. We need to understand how users trust and view that type interaction with autonomy across a variety of situations,” Anderson said.

The initiative aims to build metrics and models for real time predictions of trust, with the goal of helping developers create better AI systems in the future, said Clark, an associate professor in Smead Aerospace.

“Space and military autonomy represent critically challenging environments and being able to estimate and predict human-operator trust will enable systems to intelligently alter their behaviors to complement their human teammates,” Clark said.

During the research, test subjects will be fitted with wearable sensors while they conduct tasks with AI systems. The sensors will collect physiological data on the body’s responses – things like heart rate and respiration – as well as how users physically interact with the systems. That includes where they are looking on a computer screen, the buttons they click, and how long they take to do an activity requested by the AI powered system.

“It’s exciting to work in this emerging field where there are important questions that need to be answered to move out of the laboratory and into operations,” Anderson said.

The three-year, $900,000 grant is being led overall by the University of California, Davis. CU Boulder’s work represents nearly $500,000 of the total award.

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Anderson lands prestigious NSF CAREER research award to study human-autonomy interactions

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 19:12:01 +0000

Anderson lands prestigious NSF CAREER research award to study human-autonomy interactions Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/16/2023 - 13:12

Jeff Zehnder

Allie Anderson

Allie Anderson is probing trust in human-robot interactions with a major grant provided to promising early career faculty.

Anderson, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, has earned a 2023 National Science Foundation CAREER Award. The prestigious program supports early career faculty with potential to become leaders in research and education.

The five-year grant will allow Anderson to investigate an area of increasing importance for society – how humans work over time with autonomous systems – with a specific focus on trust.

“Autonomous systems are increasingly integrated into our lives every day,” Anderson said. “When people over trust technology, they rely on it too much. If people under trust it, they don’t use a system at all or use it inappropriately. Trust also changes over time as you use a system.”

That evolution as someone interacts with an autonomous system on an ongoing basis is a particular emphasis. While there have been studies looking at how people use autonomous systems, they typically involve test subjects in a laboratory environment at a single point in time. Anderson is instead probing these interactions over a longer period and in something closer to a real-world environment.

The study will explore two different industries that already use autonomous systems: package distribution centers and general aviation.

To complete the research, Anderson has partnered with Amazon to conduct interviews and simulations with employees at the company’s distribution centers where package procurement is done with human-robot teams. The aviation component will focus on small plane pilots using upgraded avionics systems to provide guidance and navigation during flight.

“These autonomous systems are already in place, but like everything, they’re imperfect, so people have to decide how to trust them,” Anderson said.

Study participants will be fitted with a series of wearable sensors to collect a wide array of physiological data, including heart rate, respiration, skin conductance, even pupil diameter and blink count.

“The idea is people don’t have to report their response manually. The sensors get the signal from the body and estimate trust so we can know their trust level – how they’re feeling,” she said.

Wearable sensor technology, especially in aerospace applications, has long been a focus of Anderson’s work. She has conducted numerous investigations into human health and performance with an aim to developing technologies to measure and improve the body’s adaptations to extreme stressors, like those experienced in space.

This new research has could help manufacturers develop better autonomous systems in the future.

In addition to the research, the CAREER award also includes an education and outreach component. Anderson will be creating hands-on academic modules for rural Colorado high school math and biology classes.

“�鶹��Ժ on the Front Range have a ton of resources, but there’s less on the Eastern Plains and in the mountain regions and I want to help with that,” she said. “These modules will be aligned with state curriculum standards and will focus on how we use math and probabilities, how we use physiological signals and trust.”

It is a particular passion for Anderson, who completed her master’s thesis on rural STEM education.

“I grew up on a farm in Southwest Missouri. We always looked at the stars as a family and it spurred my love of space. In third grade, my teacher did a lesson on astronauts and I was obsessed. I still am,” Anderson said.

The full title of Anderson’s CAREER award is Physiological Modeling of Longitudinal Human Trust in Autonomy for Operational Environments. The research will formally begin in August and run through summer 2028.

Allie Anderson is probing trust in human-robot interactions with a major grant provided to promising early career faculty. Anderson has earned a $675,000 National Science...

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Before the crew of Polaris Dawn heads to space, they came to campus

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 19:53:13 +0000

Before the crew of Polaris Dawn heads to space, they came to campus Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 12:53

Four crew members of Polaris Dawn, including a CU Boulder engineering alumna, came to campus this week to discuss the science they will conduct throughout the mission in addition to answering questions and share stories with students. The visit comes nearly four months before the crew’s historic space mission is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Polaris Dawn, the first of the Polaris Program’s three human spaceflight missions, will conduct 38 science and research experiments while in orbit. The research is designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights. Polaris Dawn crew members will also attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk and attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. They also will become the first crew to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for human spaceflight missions to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Crew members include Mission Commander Jared “Rook” Isaacman; Mission Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet; Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna “Walker” Menon; and Mission Specialist Sarah “Cooper” Gillis, who graduated from CU Boulder in 2017 with a degree in aerospace engineering sciences.

Panel of Polaris crew members and CU Boulder researchers talk at a campus event. Left to right: Torin Clark, Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman, Sarah Gillis and Allie Anderson during a campus event Monday. Photo by Casey A. Cass/CU Boulder.

“We all very much believe in a world where everyone is going to have an opportunity to go into space,” said Isaacman, who previously traveled to space as part of Inspiration4 mission in 2021.

In Boulder, the crew joined two CU Boulder researchers on a panel: Allie Anderson and Torin Clark, assistant professors of aerospace engineering sciences, who are leading five of the scientific experiments that will fly on Polaris Dawn.

The six space buffs talked about smart contact lenses, space motion sickness and why living on Mars will be like nothing humans have encountered before.

Anna Menon on what kind of training Polaris crew members undergo

We have done a lot of training focused on the technical details of the Dragon spacecraft. Then we've layered on top of that a lot of different environmental experiences to help us build team cohesion and also teach ourselves about our bodies’ responses to different environments. We went scuba diving to start experiencing the different changes in pressure environments that we will encounter when we do a spacewalk.

We climbed a nearly 20,000-foot mountain to get comfortable being uncomfortable together. We want to make sure that we can sit in a small can together for five days.

Sarah Gillis on people with disabilities and chronic illnesses flying to space

What we're trying to do is expand access to space for all. On Inspiration4, Hayley Arceneaux was the first person to fly with a prosthesis. For anyone who has disabilities, the space environment allows you to live in an entirely different way.

On our flight, we're going to be wearing glucose monitors for the full duration of the mission. About 10% of the U.S. population is diabetic, and that shouldn't disqualify you from flight as long as we can make sure that you can handle that well in space.

Torin Clark on studying how astronauts experience ‘space motion sickness’

A lot of what we're interested in is how our sensory systems and the brain interpret gravitational cues as you go from here on Earth, where there's gravity, to being in space where you're in a microgravity environment. We have one experiment that is looking at what sort of unexpected or illusory sensations the crew might experience when they go into microgravity.

We're also interested in the reverse of that: What are the sensations people face when they come back to Earth and transition from being adapted to microgravity to now experiencing the gravity-rich environment here on Earth?

Allie Anderson on exploring spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS), a condition that can seriously affect the eyesight of astronauts

Essentially, the eye changes in space—it gets flattened from behind, and we have structural damage that you see to the eye itself, as well as to the nerve that goes from the brain to the eye.

To study that, we're flying two pieces of equipment in collaboration with our partners. We’re flying a device called the Quick See, which measures peoples’ refractive error, so what prescription somebody might need. We're also flying a device called the Triggerfish. It has a contact lens with an antenna in it, and it allows us to look at how the cornea, the front part of the eye, changes its shape, which tells us something about pressure in the eye.

Scott Poteet on what it’s like, as a former fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, to fly a vehicle that’s largely autonomous

Coming from fighters, I have a control issue. I want to control as much as I possibly can. But the direction we're going in the evolution of space travel, it's autonomous. It's the natural progression of most machines. I also think there is a lot of carry-over from flying fighters and other types of aircraft—the situational awareness, maintaining sensory management, understanding the information and how to interpret it, and communicating not only to your crew but everyone on the ground. I think these skillsets are still applicable and will be in the future.

Jared Isaacman on the prospect of living on Mars

What happens when a child is born in a reduced gravity environment? What does that set them up for? Today, not even a minor surgery has been done in space let alone a Cesarean section. If you live on Mars, Earth isn’t a blue marble like when you’re looking back from the moon. It’s a tiny, blue speck. You’re not two days or 24 hours from coming home from space. You’re six to nine months from coming home if something’s gone wrong.

I say all this because you’re all pursuing an academic path in aerospace. There are a million, real problems that people are going to have to put energy toward in a number of fields if having a sustainable population on another planet tis going to be even remotely possible.

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New MD-MS Program Prepares Medical �鶹��Ժ for Careers in Human Spaceflight

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:07:39 +0000

New MD-MS Program Prepares Medical �鶹��Ժ for Careers in Human Spaceflight Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/22/2022 - 15:07

Space needs doctors, and a new joint MD-MS degree program between the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder is aimed at giving medical students the skills they need to advance human spaceflight.

“The aerospace field is growing massively, especially in Colorado,” says Allie Anderson, PhD, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at CU Boulder. “The demand is definitely outpacing the supply. There are other engineering programs out there that include bioastronautics, but this new joint program puts a particular emphasis on creating a physician who's equipped with a medical degree as well as engineering knowledge.”

Anderson and Ben Easter, MD, designed the new MD-MS program together, based on Easter’s experiences as an assistant professor of emergency medicine. The new program will start accepting applications this fall and launches officially in fall 2023.

“To succeed in human spaceflight, you really need to understand both ends of the equation — to understand the engineering and the spacecraft system side, but also to understand humans and their interactions with those systems,” Easter says. “We've found that people traditionally have training on one side of that, but they don’t necessarily have expertise in both. This new joint degree program is focused on training students to understand and speak the language of medicine and of engineering.”

Life on Mars

The new program has its roots in Medicine in Space and Surface Environments (MiSSE), a three-year-old course designed by Easter and his colleagues. Blending the expertise of CU emergency medicine physicians with the engineering minds of CU Boulder students, the three-week class takes students into the Utah desert each spring to practice their skills at the Mars Desert Research Station. In an environment where similarity to the surface of the Red Planet is surprisingly accurate, students must navigate rugged topography and rapid-fire event simulations, organize into teams, and solve cascading problems, all the while racing the clock to save injured and ill crewmates.

“The idea is that you live as a crew in a remote environment that is analogous to Mars,” says Easter, who also is the deputy element scientist in NASA’s Exploration Medical Capability, part of the space agency’s Human Research Program. “You close the hatch, and then for the next two weeks, the only time you go outside is under the simulated conditions as if you were actually on the surface of Mars.”

→ Read more about the MiSSE course.

MiSSE will be one of the courses in the new joint-degree program, a five-year curriculum that enhances the traditional four years of medical school with one additional year on the Boulder campus, where students will get a master's degree in aerospace engineering, with a focus in bioastronautics — the study and support of life in space.

“They'll do the first few years in medical school, take a one-year break to go to Boulder and complete the aerospace engineering side, then come back to finish their medical education,” Easter says. “We also will support them doing electives at government agencies or commercial spaceflight companies.”

Tech enabled

Easter and Anderson recently received a CU Next Award — a grant that helps faculty members working on an intercampus collaboration to purchase technology that campus or department funding cannot cover.

The award will help them to improve the technology and equipment at the desert research station and to create two new tech-focused courses around medicine and human spaceflight. One is a hands-on, graduate-level engineering project course that will task students with designing a simulated sick bay to bring to the space simulator in the Utah desert; the other is an elective for first-year medical students to introduce them to the challenges of medical care in extreme environments, including human spaceflight.

“It will be about changes in physiology in extreme environments, and understanding how to provide medical care in an operational setting,” Easter says. “It also will teach the students a lot about their interactions with technology as clinicians, and how that interacts with telemedicine. If you're a clinician who's caring for patients millions of miles away, that's a very different experience of providing care than it is at the bedside.”

One of a kind

As human spaceflight becomes more complex and far-reaching, astronauts will need training to care for more complex medical conditions in a more autonomous fashion. Right now, the close proximity of the International Space Station allows for real-time communications with the ground, quick resupply of medicine and medical supplies, and timely medical evacuation, if needed. But once a spacecraft launches for Mars, that all changes.

“On a Mars mission, there’s a 44-minute communication delay, you can't resupply whenever you want to, and it's going to take six to nine months to get there and come home,” Easter says. “And oh, by the way, you can't come home whenever you want. You have to wait for the planets to line up. That's a very different set of challenges where we clearly need enhanced medical training and need to support the astronauts making medical decisions and executing procedures in a progressively Earth-independent manner.”

That makes the timing perfect to launch a degree program unlike any that has existed before.

“To our knowledge, there is no other program anywhere in the country that's a joint medical and aerospace engineering degree with a focus on human spaceflight,” Easter says. “We're really looking for students who have a love of spaceflight and really want to work in this field.”

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Choose to Challenge: Allison Anderson

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 16:35:27 +0000

Choose to Challenge: Allison Anderson Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/09/2021 - 09:35

Allison Anderson, the 2020 Young Professional Engineer of the Year (Rocky Mountain AIAA), has been a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder since 2017.

Throughout her time, she has focused on research involving space and aviation biomedical issues in addition to spacesuit design. She has authored and co-authored numerous research papers and presentations, mentored and taught countless students, and gave a TEDx talk on spacesuits for Mars missions. Some of the notable awards she has received include National Academy of Science New Leader in Space Science in 2016 and National Space Biomedical Research Institute First Award Fellow in 2014.

Highlights

First became interested in space in third grade
Earned degrees from USC and MIT
Joined CU Boulder in 2017
Researching how the human eye changes in microgravity
Winner of the 2020 Young Professional Engineer of the Year award

Anderson has always loved space, but her curiosity catalyzed when she was in third grade, she nostalgically recounted.

“Our teacher spent the day telling us about astronauts, and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever,” Anderson said. “It amplified my love for space because it was the first time I realized that people could go there, and it really fascinated me.”

She began her journey into human spaceflight at the University of Southern California, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in astronautics engineering. She then continued to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for double master’s degrees in aerospace engineering and technology policy as well as a PhD in aerospace biomedical engineering.

Deciding to become a professor was an easy choice, she said.

“I got hooked on teaching through outreach,” she said. “I really wanted to be a professor because I couldn’t give up research and I couldn’t give up teaching.”

At the University of Colorado Boulder, she is on the “ground floor of a true scientific debate of a really unknown (problem)” that aims to discover why astronauts’ eyes flatten while they are in space.

She passionately affirmed this research is “exciting from a scientific breakthrough perspective. Understanding how the eye changes in microgravity is a relatively recent problem, and there was not a lot of certainty around what was causing it.”

As for the future of her research, she said, “I am excited because I feel like a lot of my research threads are starting to merge and integrate. I find that really exciting because I think we’re able to continue being interdisciplinary while pulling in from other areas.”

She doesn’t shy away from giving thanks to the pioneers and the mentors who empowered her journey throughout her career as a professor in STEM.

“When you’re first starting this job, there is a lot you don’t know and don’t understand,” she said. “Every single one of (my mentors) approached working with me from the perspective of helping me figure it out and advancing my career by providing really useful advice, which I have been very lucky to have.”

She has also embraced her role as a female professor.

“Once I became a professor and I noticed just how few female professors there really are, I realized how much my students in the classroom recognized that,” she said. “And I think that is where I began to want to step into that role more.”

When asked what advice she would give to her younger self, she takes a minute to think.

“I am a big believer that where you came from makes you who you are, and if you’re happy where you are, you shouldn’t wish to change things from the past, even if those experiences were negative,” she said. “One of the things I would tell my younger self is just to not second-guess yourself and the degree to which what you’re doing is good or valuable or important” — advice she still tells herself to this day.

This advice provides reinforcement and courage for aspiring engineers across all domains and ranging from all experience levels in the STEM community.

Where does she envision her leadership at the university heading? She exhibits an eager smile at this question.

“One of the things that is really incredible about CU is you feel a vibrancy across the engineering school. I think you see that at a lot of other universities, people sort of talk about being stagnant or stationary, and you just don’t get that sense at all at CU. Every department across the college is growing. Every department has more professors, more buildings, more students, our reputations are rising and I think that is the growth period ... that is synced with this national and global emphasis on STEM and technology.”

About the Author

I am Madisen Purifoy-Frie, and I am an aerospace engineering student in the class of 2022. Allie Anderson is such an amazing facility member, and I am honored that she let me highlight her.

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Help is a long way away: The challenges of sending humans to Mars

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 16:59:25 +0000

Help is a long way away: The challenges of sending humans to Mars Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/02/2021 - 09:59

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stepped out a lunar lander onto the surface of the moon. The landscape in front of him, which was made up of stark blacks and grays, resembled what he later called “magnificent desolation.”

When it comes to desolation, however, the moon may have nothing on Mars.

The red planet circles the sun at an average distance of about 140 million miles from Earth. When people eventually visit this world—whether that’s in 20 years or 50—they may face a journey lasting 1,000 days or longer. The entire Apollo 11 mission, in contrast, lasted just a little over eight days. If future Mars astronauts get lonely, or if something more serious goes wrong, help is a long way away.

For researchers who study how human bodies and minds respond to the rigors of space travel, the scenario poses a lot of unknowns.

“We have never put someone in space for that long,” said Allie Anderson, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “There will be a lot of challenges we can’t predict because the human body doesn’t always behave as we predict when living in space.”

Those challenges are in the spotlight again after NASA successfully landed its most recent non-human astronaut, a rover named Perseverance, on the surface of Mars Feb. 18. They’re also the bread and butter of researchers studying bioastronautics, or the study and support of life in space, at CU Boulder.

Anderson, for example, explores high-tech clothing that can monitor the health of astronauts as they live and work on Mars. Her research, she added, has evolved a lot as people across the globe are feeling increasingly isolated in their own lives. A second team led by engineer David Klaus studies how space habitats that employ “smart systems,” such as intelligent robots, might one day help humans to survive on the surface of an alien world.

It’s a research focus that comes with zero room for error, said Klaus, a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at CU Boulder.

“Today, if something breaks on the International Space Station, astronauts can always get into a capsule and come home,” he said. “When you start getting out toward Mars, you’re very far away. You can’t rely on ground control.”

The stillness of space

Top: Allie Anderson (middle, in helmet) participates in a class held in southern Utah and led by the CU Anschutz Medical Campus simulating the challenges of providing medical care on Mars; bottom: A patch of fabric that weaves in electrodes for monitoring human heart signals. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Anderson lab)

Anderson noted that space can be a dangerous environment but also one that brings a sense of tranquility. It’s something she got to experience herself, if only for a few seconds in 2015. The engineer, who was then a postdoctoral researcher studying how low gravity environments can affect human eyesight, had the opportunity to ride on one of NASA’s famous parabolic flights—large airplanes that fly high into the air then plummet quickly to make passengers feel like they’re weightless.

In a recent video, Anderson described a moment she had to herself at the end of that flight: “I gently push off, and in that 20 second window, I get to just float and experience the calmness and stillness of space.”

For the engineer, who refers to herself as a “little bit of a Martian” because of her passion for that planet, the feeling was short-lived. For Mars astronauts, that stillness will be an everyday reality. Even communicating with friends and family back home will be an ordeal. If you speak into a microphone on Mars, it can take anywhere from about five to 20 minutes for someone on Earth to hear your call. Mental health interventions like psychotherapy will be nearly impossible.

“Astronauts aren’t going to be able to take a vacation from that environment,” Anderson said.

So she and her colleagues, among other research projects, are trying to work within that uncertainty. They’re designing tools and strategies that may one day allow health professionals on Earth to monitor and even treat Mars explorers when they’re feeling stressed out.

Katya Arquilla, a graduate student working with Anderson, sees a lot of parallels to the challenges of providing mental health resources on Earth.

“A big issue is to get over the stigma of mental health,” she said. “That’s a problem we see here on Earth all the time—getting people to realize that they may have a mental illness and to seek help.”

In one project, Arquilla and Anderson have devised new ways of collecting electrocardiogram (ECG) data on human patients. These heart signals, which are often used to diagnose heart attacks and similar health problems, can give medical personnel a window into how people are handling stress. Normally, doctors rely on obtrusive and uncomfortable adhesive electrodes to take ECG data. Arquilla, in contrast, developed and tested new kinds of woven electrodes that can be incorporated into the fabric of a normal, tight-fitting T-shirt.

Arquilla said that her thinking about the project has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, millions of Americans—not just highly-trained astronauts—are undergoing the kind of loneliness and isolation that may await future Mars explorers. She hopes her research can make their lives better, too.

“I think the conversation on mental health here in the United States is finally shifting in a healthy direction,” she said. “Hopefully, these types of technologies can be integrated into care on Earth, as well.”

Habitats as ecosystems

When people from Earth finally make it to Mars, they’ll need someplace to sleep—and those future living spaces will have to be much more than just homes, said Patrick Pischulti, a graduate student working on Klaus’ team.

Top: Graduate students (from left) Patrick Pischulti, Annika Rollock and Ray Pitts in front of a full-sized model of a space shuttle nose cone on the CU Boulder campus; bottom: An artist's depiction of what a space habitat might look like. (Credits: CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science; NASA)

“For astronauts, the space habitat is their ecosystem,” he said. “It provides oxygen. It provides water. It protects them from the dangers of the space environment.”

Klaus, Pischulti and their colleagues are focusing on how NASA and other space agencies can keep these delicate ecosystems “alive” even when humans aren’t onboard. In other words, how can a space habitat continue to function when there are no astronauts around to perform routine maintenance? The research is part of a NASA-funded initiative called the Habitats Optimized for Missions of Exploration (HOME) Space Technology Research Institute, which is led by the University of California, Davis.

That’s important for Mars exploration in which habitats may sit empty for months in between crewed missions, Klaus said.

“With the exception of a few short durations in between Skylab missions in the 1970s and during the early International Space Stations construction phase, there’s never been an opportunity or a need in NASA’s missions to have a human spacecraft with no humans onboard,” he said.

The key to developing these kinds of self-sufficient homes may lie in “smart systems.” That’s a catchall term for intelligent machines, from vacuuming robots to floating networks of fire detectors, that can work in tandem with human users. NASA, for example, has already sent three robots collectively known as Astrobee to the International Space Station. The space agency is testing whether these flying, cube-shaped machines will be able to help astronauts complete their daily chores, such as shuttling objects around the station.

On Earth, there are no shortage to these kinds of tools, said Annika Rollock, a graduate student working on the HOME project. She and her colleagues, however, are seeking to better understand which ones may be critical for keeping astronauts healthy and safe—and which ones might only get in the way or, even worse, put human lives at risk.

“We have to say, ‘This AC unit or fire detector works great in an apartment building, but it won’t work in space, or it’s not going to be worth sending it into space,” Rollock said.

For now, working in the field of bioastronautics can take a lot of patience—it may be decades, if not longer, before we see an Earthling set foot on Mars. But Anderson is hopeful, at least, that she’ll see her hard work make it to the red planet one day.

“I am hoping to see somebody stand on the surface of Mars before I die,” she said. “Even though I think I’ll be an old woman when that happens.”

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Video - Time and Space: A Deeper Look Into the World Around Us

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 17:05:47 +0000

Video - Time and Space: A Deeper Look Into the World Around Us Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/16/2020 - 11:05

CU Boulder's third annual Research & Innovation Week took place from October 12–16, 2020. Assistant Professor Allie Anderson recorded a segment for a webinar entitled Time and Space: A Deeper Look Into the World Around Us in which she discussed conducting ocular research on NASA's reduced gravity aircraft.

Watch the full webinar on Zoom

Anderson's portion is also available as a separate video below:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F6upKMp2bw]

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Seminar - Measuring and mitigating the effects of spaceflight on human health and performance - Sept. 4

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 18:28:33 +0000

Seminar - Measuring and mitigating the effects of spaceflight on human health and performance - Sept. 4 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/01/2020 - 12:28

Allie Anderson
Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace
Friday, Sep. 4 | 12:30 P.M. | Zoom Webinar - Registration Required

Extravehicular activity (EVA),
Alternative reality (XR) technologies for spaceflight applications;
The spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS); and
Human resilience in isolated, confined, extreme (ICE) environments.

Each of these areas is identified by NASA as critical to resolve prior to a human mission to Mars. We are tackling future EVA issues by pursuing paradigm-shifting technologies to enable planetary surface exploration. Our methods investigate novel ways to design spacecraft and train astronauts through XR environments like virtual reality (VR). Our research has also made contributions to SANS by investigating the acute physiological responses of the eye and cardiovascular system to countermeasures and by developing technologies to investigate the syndrome’s etiology. Finally, our work assesses cognitive and behavioral health, while providing countermeasures applicable in ICE settings. Together, these aerospace applications span subdisciplines with in the fields of engineering, science, medicine. Thus, by focusing our research on human health and performance in extreme environments, we are advancing the state of the art for Earth-based applications in several diverse fields.

Bio: Allison Anderson is an Assistant Professor in the Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences within the Bioastronautics lab. She is also an Adjunct Professor in Integrative Physiology and an Affiliated faculty member with the Biomedical Engineering program. She received her B.S. in Astronautics Engineering from the University of Southern California in 2007, an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. in Technology Policy in 2011 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Biomedical Engineering in 2014 from MIT. She was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute to study human space physiology at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Her work investigates human health and performance in aerospace environments with a focus on aerospace biomedical engineering. Specifically, her work is directed toward enabling a human mission to Mars and has been supported by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health and NASA. She was selected as the 2020 Young Professional Engineer of the Year (AIAA Rocky Mountain Region).

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