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The European Space Agency’s (ESA) selection of six new astronauts, participation in long-duration ISS missions, and the emergence of space tourism precipitate a need for a formalized education and training pathway to ensure that suitably qualified European space medicine and life science professionals emerge in the coming years. Thus, ESA Crew Medical Support Office sought an academic partner to generate a MSc programme that is the first step in this direction and the starting point for other new programmes for space health professionals.

The resultant Space Physiology & Health MSc programme seeks to provide a stepping stone for students to embark upon this pathway and is tailored by space professionals to meet the needs of the industry. The programme is run by King's College London who seek to enthuse, equip and develop individuals to contribute to, and ultimately lead space physiology and medicine into a new age of exploitation and exploration.

The programme draws from King’s College London’s (a top 25 world ranking university) Centre of Human & Aerospace Physiological Science’s (CHAPS) strength of research-led teaching including the internationally successful post-graduate programmes; Human & Applied Physiology MSc and the renowned Diploma of Aviation Medicine run in co-operation with the Royal Air force and accredited by the UK’s Royal College of Physician’s.

The programme is run in collaboration with ESA’s Crew Medical Support Office which provides a European space operational perspective. This is supplemented by a range of external international experts, each bringing their expertise and perspective from a host of academic institutions, space agencies (this also includes NASA) and contractors from across the world. During their taught study students are immersed in English, however a key feature of the programme is the substantial lab-based training which facilitates the conduction of group research within a hypobaric chamber at the RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine and upon a man-rated centrifuge, prior to pursuit of individual summer research projects within space-related institutions across the globe e.g. German Space Agency, French Space Agency, Toulouse, Microgravity Centre Brazil, and the Institute for Biomedical Problems Moscow.

The international but select (programme entry is capped at 12 students) programme focuses upon manned space flight both from the operational and experimental life science perspective in order to form part of an educational pathway (also including Helmholtz-SpaceLife PhDs) to develop postgraduate scientists and clinicians to become leaders in space and/or terrestrial biomedical sciences; be it in academic research, industry, health care, defence research laboratories, or within national or international space agencies.

The field of space medicine is varied and comprises many different professional domains. It means clinical space medicine as well as space physiology, but it also includes an element of life science and research. Technological knowledge, such as biomedical engineering skills and the in-depth understanding of life support systems and IT tools, is also an important component of space medicine. The term “Space Health” reflects just this. It means more than just space medicine and implies that already now, but even more so in the future, proficiency in all the different domains is required to support humans in space and maintain their health and fitness before, during and after their missions.

The first cohort of students were drawn from countries both within the EU and beyond with each bringing different skills and knowledge to the programme e.g. Sport and Exercise Science, Biomedical Science, Physiology, Physiotherapy, Pharmacy and Psychology). Therefore each student offers different perspectives during the course whilst also going for different positions upon graduation. In fact most of our students were already accepted in ESA or PhD programmes (space related and more general human performance) even before they left the UK for their summer research projects!

Would you like to help advance science and healthcare in space and on earth?

If so then apply today at http://tiny.cc/sph.

You can read more about the programme at:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/biohealth/research/divisions/chaps/study/spacephysiology.aspx.

For more information contact the course leader Dr. David Andrew Green (PhD) by telephone: +44 (0)207 848 8176 or email: David.A.Green@kcl.ac.uk.

To find out which other Higher Education establishments offer space-related degree courses, visit ESERO-UK's dedicated webpage.