February 2024 workshop: white-paper briefing, Human Health and Performance Architectural Drivers¶
Document: 08-2024-architecture-workshop-white-paper-human-health-and-peformance.pdf ("peformance" as in the
file name), 10 slides, 2,368,299 bytes, from https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/, fetched
2026-10-01T18:28:03Z (sources/manifest.csv). Title slide: "Human Health and Performance Architectural Drivers"
(slide 1). No presenter or date. Footer: "2024 Moon to Mars Architecture Workshops". Listed on the
Architecture Workshops page under "February 2024". Text:
sources/text/docs/2024-02-08-2024-architecture-workshop-white-paper-human-health-and-peformance.txt; images in
sources/raw/slides/2024-02-08-2024-architecture-workshop-white-paper-human-health-and-peformance/.
Rank and method. A briefing, not the architecture of record (SCHEMA, "Workshop slides"), older than Rev B and Rev C. It briefs a 2023 white paper the wiki doesn't hold, listed in the opening deck as "Human Health and Performance for Mars Missions", a workshop suggestion (Overview and Updates, slide 11). All 10 slides were read in the text layer. The images of the text-poor slides 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 were viewed, and of slide 6 (its text layer is scrambled); the title card (slide 1) wasn't. The text has no "Moon Base", "CUI" or "Pre-Decisional" (searched).
Summary. The Human Research Program's five hazards of spaceflight, the human system risks under each, how the risks interact, and what they require of a Mars mission's vehicles, life support and suits. It adds to the wiki a chart of the risks by hazard (32 icons, by the wiki's count) with their cross-interactions, and four lists of architectural requirements ("will be required", "must") for medical care, vehicle design, ECLSS and EVA suits.
Slides¶
| Slide | Title (as printed) | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Human Health and Performance Architectural Drivers" | Title card |
| 2 | (none) | A collage of astronaut portraits and ISS life (image) |
| 3 | (none) | The five hazards over pictures of Earth, the ISS, the Moon and Mars: "Radiation", "Isolation & Confinement", "Distance from Earth", "Gravity Fields", "Environments", each with an enlarged initial (R, I, D, G, E) (image) |
| 4 | "Human System Risks" | The risks (image) |
| 5 | "Human System Risks Cross Interaction" | Interactions (image) |
| 6–9 | "Human System Risks and Mission Architecture" | What the architecture must provide |
| 10 | "White Paper" | The paper (image) |
The risks (slides 4–5)¶
Slide 4, "Human System Risks", read from the image: icons under the five hazards. The count per hazard is the wiki's.
| Hazard | Risks, as printed |
|---|---|
| Radiation (2) | "Non-Ionizing Radiation"; "Radiation Carcinogenesis – Post Mission" |
| Isolation & Confinement (2) | "Inadequate Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team"; "Adverse Cognitive or Behavioral Conditions" |
| Distance from Earth (5) | "Inadequate Human Systems Architecture"; "Earth Independent Operations"; "Ineffective or Toxic Medications"; "Inadequate Food and Nutrition"; "Inflight Medial Conditions" |
| Gravity Fields (12) | "Bone Fracture"; "Reduced Muscle Size"; "Reduced Aerobic Capacity"; "Cardiac Rhythm Problems"; "Cardiovascular Adaptations"; "Sensorimotor Alterations"; "Renal Stone Formation"; "Urinary Retention"; "Orthostatic Intolerance"; "Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS)"; "Venous Thromboembolism-VTE"; "Host-Microorganism Interactions" |
| Environments (11) | "Reduced EVA Performance"; "Decompression Sickness"; "Hypoxia"; "Carbon Dioxide Exposure"; "Celestial Dust Exposure"; "Toxic Exposure"; "Electrical Shock"; "Hearing Loss"; "Injury from Dynamic Loads"; "Altered Immune Response"; "Sleep Loss" |
Slide 5, "Human System Risks Cross Interaction", repeats the chart with boxes and arrows, read from the image: the two Isolation & Confinement risks linked both ways to "Inadequate Human Systems Architecture" and "Earth Independent Operations"; those two feeding a box of five gravity risks (bone, muscle, aerobic capacity, sensorimotor, orthostatic), which feeds "Reduced EVA Performance"; decompression sickness and hypoxia, and carbon dioxide and dust exposure, also feeding "Reduced EVA Performance"; medications and food feeding "Inflight Medial Conditions", linked both ways to six other gravity risks (cardiac, cardiovascular, renal, urinary, SANS, VTE). Under all of it, "Cross Risk Interaction".
What the architecture must provide (slides 6–9)¶
Four slides headed "Human System Risks and Mission Architecture", each with a list and some of slide 4's icons:
- Medical/Health (slide 6, image checked): "Integrated Autonomous Medical Systems (processing, data, storage etc.) will be required to prevent, assess and treat medical conditions (illness, injury & environmental exposure)"; resources for "behavioral health and performance and effective team dynamics"; "Food systems (of minimum mass and volume)"; "Proper hydration system"; "Communications will be required for medical operations and behavioral health"; "The ability to train crews in flight will be needed to maintain crew competencies for operations and with comm delay"; "Exercise hardware will be required to maintain crew bone, muscle, aerobic and behavioral health".
- Vehicle Design and Operations (slide 7): "Adequate vehicle shielding and solar system monitoring will be required to prevent acute radiation sickness"; "human system interaction design"; "Private sleep quarters"; engineering "to minimize acoustic levels"; "the proper dynamic loads" for launch, entry, descent and landing; "Automated entry, descent and landing will be required to compensate for the crew's sensorimotor deficits during re-entry to partial gravity from microgravity"; "Window design must minimize sunlight/UV exposure".
- ECLSS (slide 8): atmosphere ("O2, CO2 etc"); "ECLSS filtration systems will be required to prevent crew exposure to celestial dust"; microbial and toxic exposure minimized by design; "Automated monitoring, logging and warning systems … (including acoustics, radiation etc.)"; ECLSS resources "to minimize/mitigate decompression sickness related to EVAs".
- EVA Suit Design (slide 9): "Space Suit design must minimize crew injury and maximize crew performance"; atmosphere and temperature; "hydration and nutrition for long duration EVAs"; minimal resources against decompression sickness; "Proper lighting at South Pole -Lunar".
Many of these items are subjects of Rev C technology gaps: exercise (#0401), sensorimotor (#0402), medical (#0405), food (#0305), environmental monitoring (#0304), radiation monitoring and countermeasures (#0307, #0308), spacesuit physiology (#0406), dust (#0801, #0802). The pairing is the wiki's, by subject; the slides cite no gap. See Human Systems.
The paper (slide 10)¶
Thumbnails of the paper's four pages and a QR code, read from the image as far as the print allows. The first page is headed "Human Health and Performance: Keeping Astronauts Safe & Productive On a Mission to Mars", with "2023 Moon to Mars Architecture" down the side and "2023 Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review" in the footer. It has a figure headed "Integrated Human Performance", captioned "Figure 1. Five Hazards of Human Spaceflight and Associated Human System Risks", with the groups "Space Radiation", "Isolation & Confinement", "Distance from Earth", "Altered Gravity Fields" and "Hostile/Closed Environments". The text layer of slide 10 holds only "White Paper".
The February 2025 crew-complement briefing shows a figure under the same heading with the same five group names (crew complement briefing, slide 3). That it is this paper's Figure 1 is the wiki's reading of a thumbnail.
What changed by Rev C¶
These comparisons are the wiki's.
- The subjects are now gaps. Rev C's Human Systems and Habitation gaps cover most of the lists above (see the pairing above); the countermeasure and medical gaps #0401 to #0405 are rated 39 to 46 of 57 (Gaps index).
- Automated landing "to compensate for the crew's sensorimotor deficits" has no gap of its own in Rev C; the Mars landing gaps (#1102, #1103) are about precision and mass.
- Lighting at the South Pole for suits is in no Rev C gap title.
Oddities¶
As printed, images checked:
- "Inflight Medial Conditions" for "Medical" (slides 4, 5, 6).
- "Gravity Fields" on the slides; "Altered Gravity Fields" in the paper's figure, as far as the thumbnail can be read.
- "peformance" in the file name.
Related pages¶
Human Systems · Habitation Systems · Mars crew complement briefing, February 2025 · Mars science breakout, February 2024 · Overview and Updates, February 2024