Humans In Space

Humans In Space Insights

Building Autonomous Healthcare for Deep Space Exploration

2026-04-07
<p><br><span class='text-huge'><strong>Jancy McPhee on Crew Health Autonomy, Commercial Partnerships, and the Road to Mars</strong></span></p><figure class='media'><oembed url='https://www.youtube.com/embed/foaWvQOsdyY'></oembed></figure><p>As human spaceflight advances toward more frequent and complex missions, the sustainability of a human presence in orbit depends on a deep integration of clinical medicine and aerospace science. Beyond technical engineering, the future of exploration rests on how effectively human health can be preserved in environments far removed from Earth.</p><p>For Jancy McPhee, Associate Chief Scientist of NASA's Human Research Program, this challenge is about developing the science strategies that will carry humanity further into space — to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond — through coordinated partnerships with commercial and international partners.</p><p> </p><p><span class='text-big'><strong>From Risk Management to Enabling Exploration</strong></span></p><p>McPhee's work centers on systematically identifying and addressing the health risks that astronauts face in the space environment. As she explains, the space environment poses serious challenges to both mental and physical health, and as missions extend beyond low Earth orbit, those risks grow significantly more complex.</p><blockquote><p><strong>“The space environment is hazardous to humans. It can be challenging to their mental and physical health, and also operating in that environment can be very challenging.”</strong></p></blockquote><p> </p><p>Her team focuses on identifying the technologies, processes, and countermeasures needed to close the gaps in human health and performance risks — particularly as NASA looks toward exploration missions that will take crews farther from Earth than ever before.</p><blockquote><p><strong>“It's very exciting for NASA to explore accelerators as a potential way for us to get more answers and technologies to address the gaps that we have in the risks that we see going forward on these human exploration missions.”</strong></p></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p><span class='text-big'><strong>Expanding the Scope: Toward Greater Crew Autonomy</strong></span></p><p>A defining challenge of deep space missions, according to McPhee, is the fundamental shift in how healthcare will have to be delivered. Unlike missions in low Earth orbit, where mission control is always close at hand, future journeys to Mars will demand a level of medical autonomy that the space program has never before required.</p><blockquote><p><i><strong>“One of the key differences of these future exploration missions is the greater autonomy that the crew is going to have to have — they're going to have to be able to diagnose their own health challenges, be even better prepared to work together as a team.”</strong></i></p></blockquote><p> </p><p>A Mars mission lasting two to three years offers no possibility of rapid resupply or immediate intervention from Earth. Communication delays and limited cargo capacity mean that medical tools must be compact, intuitive, and operable by crew members who are not necessarily trained physicians.</p><blockquote><p><strong>“Not everyone who flies in space will necessarily have a medical degree. They will be trained to use the tools, but they won't necessarily be a doctor, so there have to be ways for more novice people to be able to make decisions and carry out healthcare solutions.”</strong></p></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p><span class='text-big'><strong>Accelerating Innovation through Diverse Mission Data</strong></span></p><p>McPhee identifies the expansion of spaceflight to a broader population as a critical opportunity for advancing space medicine. As commercial missions bring people with varied medical histories and physical profiles into space, the scientific community gains unprecedented data to refine its understanding of human health in microgravity.</p><blockquote><p><strong>“There is a broader type of person who will be experiencing spaceflight, living and working longer periods of time ultimately in space, and they have a different lifestyle and medical history from the typical agency astronauts who have been flying up until now.”</strong></p></blockquote><p> </p><p>Rather than viewing this diversity purely as a risk factor, McPhee sees it as a source of insight — one that may even challenge long-held assumptions about which health risks are truly significant.</p><blockquote><p><strong>“It's not just to identify more risks to people who are different from the typical agency astronaut, but we may actually also learn that some things are not as big a factor as we thought.”</strong></p></blockquote><p> </p><p>Through close collaboration with organizations like TRISH (Translational Research Institute for Space Health) and commercial partners such as SpaceX, NASA's Human Research Program has already begun collecting standardized health data across diverse crews. McPhee sees this collaborative, cross-boundary model as the foundation on which humanity will ultimately reach Mars — moving forward together, across agencies and sectors alike.</p>
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