Molecular and physiological changes in the SpaceX Inspiration4 civilian crew.

TitleMolecular and physiological changes in the SpaceX Inspiration4 civilian crew.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2024
AuthorsJones CW, Overbey EG, Lacombe J, Ecker AJ, Meydan C, Ryon K, Tierney B, Damle N, MacKay M, Afshin EE, Foox J, Park J, Nelson TM, Mohamad MSuhail, Byhaqui SGufran Ahm, Aslam B, Tali UAkbar, Nisa L, Menon PV, Patel CO, Khan SA, Ebert DJ, Everson A, Schubert MC, Ali NN, Sarma MS, Kim JK, Houerbi N, Grigorev K, J Medina SGarcia, Summers AJ, Gu J, Altin JA, Fattahi A, Hirzallah MI, Wu JH, Stahn AC, Beheshti A, Klotz R, Ortiz V, Yu M, Patras L, Matei I, Lyden D, Melnick A, Banerjee N, Mullane S, Kleinman AS, Loesche M, Menon AS, Donoviel DB, Urquieta E, Mateus J, Sargsyan AE, Shelhamer M, Zenhausern F, Bershad EM, Basner M, Mason CE
JournalNature
Volume632
Issue8027
Pagination1155-1164
Date Published2024 Aug
ISSN1476-4687
KeywordsAdaptation, Physiological, Adult, Astronauts, Cognition, Databases as Topic, Female, Humans, Male, Monitoring, Physiologic, Multiomics, Space Flight, Stress, Physiological, Time Factors, Weightlessness
Abstract

Human spaceflight has historically been managed by government agencies, such as in the NASA Twins Study1, but new commercial spaceflight opportunities have opened spaceflight to a broader population. In 2021, the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission launched the first all-civilian crew to low Earth orbit, which included the youngest American astronaut (aged 29), new in-flight experimental technologies (handheld ultrasound imaging, smartwatch wearables and immune profiling), ocular alignment measurements and new protocols for in-depth, multi-omic molecular and cellular profiling. Here we report the primary findings from the 3-day spaceflight mission, which induced a broad range of physiological and stress responses, neurovestibular changes indexed by ocular misalignment, and altered neurocognitive functioning, some of which match those of long-term spaceflight2, but almost all of which did not differ from baseline (pre-flight) after return to Earth. Overall, these preliminary civilian spaceflight data suggest that short-duration missions do not pose a significant health risk, and moreover present a rich opportunity to measure the earliest phases of adaptation to spaceflight in the human body at anatomical, cellular, physiological and cognitive levels. Finally, these methods and results lay the foundation for an open, rapidly expanding biomedical database for astronauts3, which can inform countermeasure development for both private and government-sponsored space missions.

DOI10.1038/s41586-024-07648-x
Alternate JournalNature
PubMed ID38862026
PubMed Central IDPMC11357997
Grant ListR01 CA249054 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH117406 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
U24 AI152172 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
R01 AI151059 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
U01 AI148307 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
Z01 AT000001 / ImNIH / Intramural NIH HHS / United States