Ethical considerations for the age of non-governmental space exploration.

Christopher E Mason, Dana Tulodziecki, Maria Manoli, Nathaniel Szewczyk, Caroline Coffey, Michael Boerrigter, Kevin B Clark, Chirag Goel, Anu R I, Alexia Tasoula, JangKeun Kim, Fathi Karouia, Jean Calleja-Agius, Joseph Borg, Hansjörg Schwertz, Afshin Beheshti, Andrea Camera, Aman Singh Galsinh, Allen Seylani, Shehbeel Arif, Saswati Das

Journal: Nature communications 2024;15(1):4774

PMID: 38862473

Abstract

Mounting ambitions and capabilities for public and private, non-government sector crewed space exploration bring with them an increasingly diverse set of space travelers, raising new and nontrivial ethical, legal, and medical policy and practice concerns which are still relatively underexplored. In this piece, we lay out several pressing issues related to ethical considerations for selecting space travelers and conducting human subject research on them, especially in the context of non-governmental and commercial/private space operations.

© 2024. The Author(s).

Address: School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside. 92521 Botanical Garden Dr, Riverside, CA, 92507, USA.; School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3FX, UK.; Department of Life Science Engineering, FH Technikum, Vienna, Austria.; Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA.; Department of Cancer Biology and Therapeutics, MVR Cancer Centre and Research Institute, Calicut, India.; Department of Clinical Biochemistry, MVR Cancer Centre and Research Institute, Calicut, India.; Department of Molecular Medicine, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.; Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, MSD2080, Msida, Malta.; Department of Applied Biomedical Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, MSD2080, Msida, Malta.; Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.; Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.; Cures Within Reach, Chicago, IL, 60602, USA.; Peace Innovation Institute, The Hague 2511, Netherlands & Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 94305, USA.; Biometrics and Nanotechnology Councils, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, NY, 10016-5997, USA.; Department of Biochemistry, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.; Center for Data-Driven Discovery in Biomedicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.; Deep Space Biology, San Francisco, CA, USA.; Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA.; School of Law, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3UB, UK.; Blue Marble Space Institute for Science, Exobiology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA.; Space Research Within Reach, San Francisco, CA, USA.; Center for Space Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.; Molecular Medicine Program at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA. [email protected].; Division of Occupational Medicine at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA. [email protected].; Occupational Medicine at Billings Clinic Bozeman, Bozeman, MT, 59715, USA. [email protected].; Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. [email protected].; Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, US. [email protected].; Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. [email protected].
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