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Operational issues encountered by Apollo astronauts relating to lunar dust were catalogued, including material abrasion that resulted in scratches and wear on spacesuit components, ultimately impacting visibility, joint mobility and pressure retention. Standard methods are being developed to measure abrasive wear on candidate construction materials to be used for spacesuits, spacecraft, and robotics. Calibration tests were conducted using a standard diamond stylus scratch tip on the common spacecraft structure aluminum, Al 6061-T6. Custom tips were fabricated from terrestrial counterparts of lunar minerals for scratching Al 6061-T6 and comparing to standard diamond scratches. Considerations are offered for how to apply standards when selecting materials and developing dust mitigation strategies for lunar architecture elements.

The most basic design requirements for a space habitat intended for human occupancy are to provide the crew with the necessary metabolic consumables, remove undesirable waste products, and maintain environmental conditions that are conducive to life, health and operations. Propulsive transportation of the habitat to its desired location, either in orbit or to a planetary surface, and either with or without a crew onboard during transit, represents the next fundamental design driver. Both of these spacecraft elements are typically characterized by a common denominator expressed in terms of launch mass, and can be optimized against various parameters for risk mitigation and operational enhancement. This paper outlines a graduate curriculum developed within an academic focus area termed Bioastronautics in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado (CU).

Forty to seventy percent of astronauts and cosmonauts reportedly exhibit undesirable vestibular disturbances during the first few days of exposure to weightlessness, including Space Motion Sickness (SMS) and perceptual illusions. While SMS is the primary concern for short-duration missions, the effect of perceptual illusions during landing may be particularly problematic following long-duration missions such as returning from the International Space Station (ISS), or a Mars mission, where vestibular, perceptual and sensorimotor adaptation to 1g, to 0g, to 0.38g has occurred. The longer the mission, the more complete the adaptation is to hypogravity and the more severe the perceptual errors and sensorimotor control disturbances.

It is hypothesized that the weightless environment experienced during space flight has a stimulating effect on the growth rate of microorganisms. This theory was tested with the bacterium Escherichia coli using protocols and supporting hardware evolved over five space shuttle missions between April, 1991 and July, 1993. In comparing 38 bacterial growth experiments across multiple flights, the overall average population density of E. coli achieved in space was 88% greater than that of matched ground controls (N=19 flight, 19 ground, p < 0.05). Depending on test variables, growth increases in space of up to 257% over ground controls were observed. Analysis of bacterial proteins by gel electrophoresis indicated an apparent difference in expressed protein between flight and ground control E. coli samples in the range of 20-30 kD.

Extravehicular Activity (EVA) based from the Space Station Freedom presents unique conditions in which a space suit must operate. To accommodate the predicted demands, new technology is required in many aspects of the suit design. The requirements associated with Space Station EVA are addressed and an overview of various technology concepts is given. Two candidate space suits are presented and the methods used to evaluate their performance characteristics are described.