Hazard: Hostile/Closed Environments
Maintaining a safe ecosystem inside a vehicle presents unique challenges, from ensuring optimal temperatures, pressures, and lighting, to reducing noise, monitoring microbial communities, and tracking immune responses.
The ecosystem inside a spacecraft plays a big role in the daily life of an astronaut in space.
Microbes can change characteristics in space, and micro-organisms that naturally live on the human body are transferred more easily from person to person in closed habitats, such as the space station. Stress hormone levels can elevate and the immune system can alter, which could lead to increased susceptibility to allergies or other illnesses. More research is needed into whether these changes pose serious risks to astronauts.
Beyond the effects of the environment on the immune system, every inch and detail of living and working quarters must be carefully considered and designed. No one wants their house to be too hot, too cold, cramped, crowded, loud, or poorly lit, and no one would enjoy working and living in such a habitat in space either.
Learn more about the challenges associated with hostile/closed environments:
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