NASA’s objectives for exploration in low Earth orbit
From crewed mission to science on the International Space Station, NASA has played a key role in space exploration.
But a lot of planning and research goes into space travel and as the space station nears retirement, NASA, commercial partners and international partners have worked together to create objectives and goals in a new Low Earth Orbit Microgravity Strategy plan.
NASA’s plan outlines goals in science fields and highlights agendas for things like international cooperation, research, public involvement and exploration agendas for the future.
Robyn Gatens, the director of the International Space Station and acting director of the Commercial Spaceflight Division within the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters said this initiative looks “beyond the life of the current international space station.”
“When we retire the International Space Station, we are going to have commercially owned and operated platforms that are going to take over in low Earth orbit,” Gatens said. “This strategy speaks to what is that infrastructure, and how do we partner with industry to do that. Then we want to very much continue operations in low Earth orbit and join operations with our partners and all.”
The International Space Station is over 25 years old and has served as a great resource to nations around the world. For Gatens, she said it is a bittersweet transition for her as the station comes to an end in the next decade. She has worked with NASA for 39 years.
“I started on the International Space Station program back in the earliest design phase, working in the lab on the earliest life support systems for it,” Gatens said. “I've been with this program for decades. What an amazing privilege to be able to follow a program like this all the way from its inception through these operations that we have now and the benefits this platform is creating for everyone here on Earth. I care very deeply about this legacy of the International Space Station, and we're not done yet. We're going to continue to get everything we can out of this platform through the end of the decade.”
Public comment is being accepted until September 22 for the Low Earth Orbit Microgravity Strategy.
Does space impact menstrual cycles?
Prior to NASA selecting women to join the NASA Astronaut Corps, discussions surrounding their capability to handle space flight on their menstrual cycles joined the conversation.
University of Central Florida history professor Amy Foster said that despite female pilots existing in the early days of aviation, one of the big questions of the time was not “Can women fly?” but “Should women fly?”
Foster said that women were challenged by the idea that they may not be physically or mentally capable of handling flights while on their cycle.
“It's as much about kind of the social expectations about what women should do that the United States had to get over for it to create opportunities for women at every point in their cycle to become astronauts,” she said.
When NASA was preparing and raising questions about the impact of spaceflight on the human body, Foster said similar questions were discussed for women and their cycles.
As NASA prepared for Sally Ride’s, the first female American astronaut, flight to space, Foster said the flight surgeons and engineers were concerned about potential negative impacts that microgravity might have on a menstrual cycle. When bringing up these concerns to women, Foster said they weren’t worried.
“They said, ‘We're going to treat this like a non-issue until it's an issue.’ Because all the astronauts, male or female, are volunteers-- how women choose to control their menstrual cycle, such as taking birth control pills to suppress it over the course of their flights, that is an option,” Foster said. “If they don't want to do that, that still is their choice, and they largely just deal with it as it happens, and it hasn't been an issue to this point. There's been no flight that's been brought home because of a medical issue related to menstruation.”
Although NASA has been concerned and attentive about long-term impacts of microgravity on the human body, Foster said female astronauts’ cycles are no different than on Earth.
“For any woman who’s experienced menstrual cramps, part of what the body is doing is a mild contraction, essentially happening to force that that layer out of the body. I don't know of any situations where it's been a problem,” Foster said. “Certainly, there has never been a medical situation like that for a woman that they've needed to bring that flight home... it's simply something that women have been able to manage just fine.”
