There is a medical understanding of the effects of travelling almost anywhere in the world, and a significant reason why travel health clinics can offer some of the medication, advice and equipment that they can is due at least in part to attempts to travel beyond the Earth itself.
Whilst a new life in the off-world colonies is still decades away from being realised, as it seemingly has been for over a century, the benefits of research and development into the effects of space travel on the human body have led to a wide range of benefits for people who have never left terra firma.
The research field of space medicine has provided a wide range of technological developments that have translated directly into medical treatments, most notably fast neutron therapy for treating cancer, dialysis machines and zero-gravity weightlessness therapy.
However, there are other developments that have directly affected travel healthcare, either through the development of technology that makes travel more feasible for people with health and mobility concerns, improves diagnostic equipment or even saves lives in the case of an emergency.
Here are some of the ways space medicine has changed healthcare and how it could shape its future for people who never leave Earth.
Travel Wheelchairs
Travelling with a wheelchair was historically very difficult, but whilst this has been alleviated in part through travel allowances for mobility items, another vital tool has been the development of highly durable lightweight wheelchairs and walking frames made possible through the development of composite materials made for space travel.
These wheelchairs, which maintain the strength to comfortably carry a person but can collapse to a size small enough to fit in an overhead compartment, were made possible through the development of lightweight composite materials at NASA, which were necessary for the development of advanced spacecraft.
CT And MRI Scans
Before you travel, and especially if you have an emergency whilst on holiday, CT and MRI scans
will sometimes be used to diagnose a medical issue in order to pinpoint the most appropriate type of treatment. They are a very common diagnostic tool that most people will experience, especially if they need to prove their fitness to travel.
Whilst NASA did not create either these or computerised tomography, digital image processing advances used to develop high-resolution photographs of the moon contributed considerably to the development of faster, more accurate and more effective scanners available around the world.
Personal Alert And Emergency Medical Communications
Whether travelling to remote locations or if you have complex health and support needs, a potentially life-saving tool is a personal alert system which provides your location to a remote support unit that can direct and provide potentially life-saving aid.
These systems have a wide variety of uses but can be essential for people who are travelling through extreme environments where medical assistance could be hours if not days away otherwise. They are especially important for solo travellers in unfamiliar locations.
A similar system is also used by emergency services to transmit locations and health information between ambulances and hospitals to ensure that the latter is ready to provide immediate, tailored emergency care.
Both systems rely on telemetry technology developed for communication and monitoring between the Earth and space.
Travel Pillows
Travel cushions have existed for decades, but modern designs which mould around your head, face and neck typically rely on memory foam, an orthopaedic material that relieves pressure, moulds to your body and provides exceptional cushioning and protection.
It is also used in hospitals to help prevent ulcers from forming and encourage better sleep posture. However, it was originally used to help protect astronauts during the extremely intense liftoff procedure, used in the seats and seatbelts.
Drug Discovery In Space
There are countless developments in medicine that have already emerged thanks to space missions, but one of the most interesting going forward is the potential space has for developing new medications.
The targeted medication remdesivir was developed in no small part thanks to a mission on the International Space Station. They tested how it worked in microgravity and how they could use the technology to improve the ratio of active medicine to delivery solvent.
Another huge potential field of research is the development of portable synthetic biology labs that would allow astronauts to essentially grow medications.
This is critical for a space mission, as many medications brought on board spacecraft have much shorter lives due to the effects of radiation, microgravity and having to remove all extraneous packaging to save weight.
This could potentially revolutionise medicine globally, but prove especially vital in places such as regions of sub-Saharan Africa where well-stocked pharmacies and doctors are not always guaranteed.
The research is still in a very early proof-of-concept stage, but the types of inventions that could put a human colony on Mars could also save lives back on Earth.