Health Risk and Medical Care Considerations for the European Space Program.

Kurzfassung

The study on medical requirements is a small but strategic part of current ESA activities to define and establish autonomous European Space Systems. Incomparison with present experience, manned operations on future systems will alter particularly with respect to mission duration, orbit altitude and initiation of extravehicular activity. Health hazards for astronauts increase with mission duration, crew size, orbit altitude and the complexity of the operation. These conditions strongly require concepts of medical care for the growing number of European astronauts.