Strategic Aspects of Space Medicine: A Journey from Conventional to Futuristic Requisites

Abstract

Space-travel system comes with a number of difficulties that endanger the astronauts' survival in the intensely radiative environment by adversely affecting their physiological functions such as muscle deterioration, bone loss, kidney stones, infection, genetic disorder, and cardiovascular adaptation. The maintenance of pharmaceutical stability is a crucial parameter to prevent faster degradation processes of therapeutics, loss of active medication potency, and time-dependent alterations in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies attributing to varied physiological changes under microgravity. The desired long shelf-life of medications and the stability studies cannot be completely based on terrestrial environment guidelines but rather include unique spaceflight conditions like microgravity, excessive radiation especially the galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events, vacuum, and variations in relative humidity. This review article mainly focuses on the sources and effects of instability-causing factors like humidity, temperature, radiation, and microgravity with cutting-edge solutions to address such problems using currently practiced methods and advanced future potential innovations. The future outlook of space medicine using technology as its backbone includes 3D printing, Bio-MOD systems, in vitro transcription, CRISPR, and tissue-on-chip and nano-implantable devices for the development of just-in-time and personalized medicines. The researchers and organizations around the globe like Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), European Space Agency (ESA), National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) are strategizing and envisaging the various vicissitudes for the development of space medicine.