Curriculum
Aerospace Enginering Sciences MS & PhD degree requirements for the Bioastronautics focus area availabie here:
/aerospace/current-students/graduates/curriculum/bioastronautics
Bioastronautics Courses
ASEN 3036 Introduction to Human Spaceflight (Spring)
Introduces students to the challenges and rewards of human spaceflight.Ìý Topics include: historical overview, motivation and rationale, astronaut selection and training, physiological and psychological concerns, human factors, basics of space habitat and life support system design, mission operations, and future program directions. Counts as upper division humanities credit.
ASEN 5158 Space Habitat Design (Fall, core MS)
Utilizes systems engineering methods for designing a spacecraft intended for human occupancy and provides a working knowledge of the subsystems needed to sustain human life. Emphasis is placed on deriving functional requirements from stated mission objectives, developing integrated vehicle schematics, and comparing options by trade study.
ASEN 5016 Space Life Sciences (Spring, core MS)
Familiarizes students with factors affecting living organisms in the space flight environment.Ìý Covers basic life support requirements, human physiological adaptations and cellular-level gravity dependent processes.Ìý Emphasis placed on technical writing and research proposal preparation.
ASEN 5018/6028 Graduate Projects I & II - Human Spacecraft section (Fall and Spring)
Topics vary by year, sometimes in multiple sections concurrently offered, and involve human space vehicle and related infrastructure design, fabrication and evaluation. Course meets the 2 semester sequence project requirement for MS students. Projects are generally ongoing as multi-year efforts and can be joined in either term.
ASEN 5137 (listed as ASEN 5519 for Fall 2023) Experimental Design and Statistical Methods (periodic)
Examines the applied issues of designing experiments and performing statistical analysis to reach justified scientific conclusions. Approaches are integrated to enable application to real-world research questions, with a focus on the unique challenges of human subject experiments. Satisfies a math course credit.Ìý
ASENÂ 5226Â Medicine in Space and Surface Environments (periodic)
A joint offering between CU Boulder Bioastronautics and CU Anschutz Department of Emergency Medicine. Examines the medical considerations for a human mission to the Moon or Mars. Teaches hands-on medical skills, ands students earn a CPR and Wilderness First Aid certification.ÌýIncludes a field component with simulated spacewalks, held at the Mars Desert Research Station. For more information, visit the .Ìý
ASEN 6116 Spacecraft Life Support Systems (periodic)
Provides a working knowledge of the spacecraft environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) and technologies needed to sustain human life.ÌýÂ Computational investigations provide students with first principles experience in one or more ECLSS technologies. Prerequisite ASEN 5158 or instructor consent.
ASEN 6216Â Human Operation of Aerospace Vehicles (periodic)
Examines the role, capabilities, and limitations of human operators in aerospace vehicles. Topics include theoretical models of human information processing and decision-making, physiological limitations of the human (particularly spatial orientation illusions), the design of display and control interfaces, and the evaluation of those interfaces for human interaction with complex aerospace systems.
ASEN 6316 Extravehicular Activity (periodic)
Covers topics associated with all aspects of planetary extravehicular activity (EVA), including spacesuit design, life support systems, operations, tool design, planetary geology, human and robotic interaction, and a historical perspecive on EVA.Ìý Course has a significant hands on / design component.