Health beyond : report of the Advisory Council on Deep-Space Healthcare

Abstract

The Advisory Council on Deep-Space Healthcare was established in November 2019 with a mandate to provide the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) with detailed recommendations on the scope and implementation of a national program in deep-space healthcare. Furthermore, the Council has to identify which Canadian organizations could be suitable partners of a CSA-led collaboration that would position Canada internationally at the crossroads of spaceflight and terrestrial healthcare innovation. The overriding recommendation is for the Canadian Space Agency to advance deep-space healthcare as a new strategic Agency priority. This would require investing ample budgetary and operationally oriented human resources for a major clinical program that would advance national capability and credibility in remote healthcare. It would position Canada in a critical international role in deep-space exploration. To this end, the CSA, in coordination with founding partners, would need to immediately develop a Roadmap for Action that translates recommendations from the Advisory Council, and the antecedent Expert Group on the Potential Canadian Healthcare and Biomedical Roles for Deep-Space Human Spaceflight, into action programs leading to two goals: for the federal government to designate deep-space healthcare as Canada’s next exploration priority (an urgent near-term goal); and for NASA to assign Canada a leadership role in deep-space healthcare (a medium-term goal) as a means to enhance crew well-being and performance, and to reduce mission risk.