A Healthy Population Overview: Baseline Characteristics of NASA Astronauts

In 2010 NASA implemented a new occupational surveillance program for the U.S. astronaut corps, the Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health. This program represents a good source of information on a healthy population which can be used to further knowledge and aid in gathering of evidence-based practices. The corps can be divided into various programs: Mercury (n= 6), Gemini (n= 20), Apollo (n= 33), Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (n= 3), Skylab (n= 9), Shuttle (n=292), Shuttle-Mir (n= 7) and International Space Station (ISS) (n= 40 to date). Astronauts assigned to multiple program and multiple trips will be counted as separate individuals for this analyses. Though there are inherent risks in the day to day work of astronauts in space, active countermeasures are in place to reduce those risks. This report/presentation describes basic demographic and physiological characteristics from selection and pre-flight measures, and key indicators of countermeasure effectiveness. Grouped data presented will be based on cumulative population data including the variables age, gender, race, height, weight, percent body fat, educational level, military service/pilot and vital status. Also included are bone densitometry, aerobic exercise test data (e.g., Watts, blood pressure at 75% of maximum heart rate, estimated VO2 max) and other fitness measures such as isokinetic strength, functional fitness, and strength to weight ratio.