Conversations at IIAS - Dr. Shawna Pandya

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Space medicine, simply put, is the practice of keeping humans not just surviving but thriving in the spaceflight environment. So, you know, I often get asked, you know, what is space medicine? Like, why do these terms belong together in in a sentence? And so, when we talk about the hazards of the spaceflight environment, everyone thinks about weightlessness and microgravity, but it includes all manner of altered gravity environments. It's 17% gravity on the moon, it's 38% gravity on Mars, it's increased G-loads at launch and landing, it's increased radiation, it's being resource limited, you're not near a major hospital. In fact, you're at least 400 km away if you're on the ISS from medical definitive medical care.

[00:00:41]Um, there's the stress of living in this very operational, very scheduled environment. Um, and then there's other things that you may not normally think about. Most of us here on Earth have an 12-hour or very close to that day-night cycle, you know, depending where you are on the Earth, you have a circadian rhythm. If you're up on the International Space Station, you're experiencing one sunset sunrise cycle every 90 minutes. That's 16 sunrise sunset cycles per 24-hour period. So, now all of this confluence of environmental factors comes forward, comes together to to affect the astronaut and the performance. And so, space medicine, simply put, is the practice of keeping humans not just surviving but thriving in the spaceflight environment.