For humans to travel in space, live, and work on other planets we must understand the wide-ranging effects these peculiar environments have on the human body.
“Being book smart is one thing, but you have to be boots on the ground,” Scheuring said. “You need doctors that understand the mission, the environment, the physiology, all the things that help successfully execute that mission.”
The U.S. Military has been at the forefront of space medicine since before the first manned missions to space. The Borden Institute’s Fundamentals of Military Medicine (2019) has a chapter entitled “Environmental Extremes: Space”. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences has a focus on space medicine available to medical students which grooms students for careers in space medicine through aerospace clerkships at NASA.
Source: (Space Medicine: Military docs help to explore the final frontier, Stars and Stripes)
