The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) was a
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
-funded
consortium
A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...
of institutions studying the health risks related to long-duration
spaceflight
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in or ...
and developing solutions to reduce those risks. The NSBRI was founded in 1997 through a NASA Cooperative Agreement. The founding director was Laurence R. Young of MIT. NSBRI's 16,400-square-foot headquarters facility was located in the
BioScience Research Collaborative in
Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
. The Institute shared the facility with
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate Sc ...
's Center for Space Medicine. The official opening was held March 19, 2012.
In March 2012
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
announced a five-year extension of its cooperative agreement with NSBRI. At the end of this period NASA wound down its relationship with NSBRI, which closed in 2017. The consortium was succeeded by the
Translational Research Institute for Space Health
The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) is a virtual, applied research consortium that pursues and funds translational research and technologies to keep astronauts healthy during space exploration, with the added benefit of po ...
(TRISH), led by the Baylor College of Medicine.
Research programs
NSBRI coordinated its research with NASA's
Human Research Program
The Human Research Program (HRP) was created in October 2005 at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in response to NASA's desire to move human research project management away from headquarters to the JSC. The HRP is an applied research and technology p ...
and contributed to its goal of reducing spaceflight risks. In 2016 NASA described the role of the collaboration as "investigat
ngchallenges of long-duration human spaceflight and bridg
ngthe expertise of biomedical community with the scientific, engineering, and operational expertise of NASA."
In 2010 and 2011, NSBRI was the only U.S. organization to participate in the
Mars-500
The MARS-500 mission was a psychosocial isolation experiment conducted between 2007 and 2011 by Russia, the European Space Agency, and China, in preparation for an unspecified future crewed spaceflight to the planet Mars. The experiment's f ...
Project's 520-day mission simulations with an experiment that monitored the six crew members' rest-activity cycles, performance and psychological responses to determine the extent to which sleep loss, fatigue, stress, mood changes and conflicts occurred during the mission.
Research Teams
* Cardiovascular Alterations
* Human Factors and Performance
* Musculoskeletal Alterations
* Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors
* Radiation Effects
* Sensorimotor Adaptation
* Smart Medical Systems and Technology
Outreach
NSBRI also had a robust
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
and
outreach
Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...
program. The NSBRI Education and Outreach team won a Stellar Award from the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation in 2007 for "performance as a nationally recognized, top-tier program that is pioneering new models for exemplary teaching, training and public outreach in support of the Vision for Space Exploration."
Consortium Members
*
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate Sc ...
*
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
*
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
*
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
*
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
*
Morehouse School of Medicine
Morehouse School of Medicine is a private co-educational medical school in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally a part of Morehouse College, the school became independent in 1981. The school abbreviates its name with its initials "MSM."
History
Esta ...
*
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eigh ...
*
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
*
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...
*
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is a public health sciences university in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is part of the University of Arkansas System and consists of six colleges, seven institutes, several research centers, a s ...
*
University of Pennsylvania Health System
The University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) is a major multi-hospital health system headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. UPHS and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania together comprise Penn Medicine, ...
*
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
References
External links
* http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/oct/HQ_C07049_Cooperative_Agreement.html
* https://web.archive.org/web/20101202051347/http://humanresearch.jsc.nasa.gov/centers/nsbri.asp
* http://mars500.imbp.ru/en/partners.html
* http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=865
*
* http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/mar/HQ_C12-013_NSBRI_Extended.html
National Space Biomedical Research Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI)
Human spaceflight
Medical research institutes in Texas
NASA
Space medicine