Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center.

Episode 125, Deep Space Health Care. I'm Pat Ryan. On this podcast we talk with scientists, engineers, astronauts, and other folks

about their part in America's Space Exploration Program. And today that includes doctors,

because this is the next part in our series about how NASA is preparing

to safely send human beings on future missions to space, from missions to the

International Space Station to the, and eventually to Mars.

NASA's Human Research Program is working to learn how the human body is affected by being in the

spaceflight environment, so we can figure out how to keep the bad

things from happening and be prepared to fight back against those effects if and

when they do happen. The H.R.P. has divided that work up into five elements, and we're learning about them in our current

series of podcasts that started with episode one twenty-three, Humans in Space. Today, we focus on developing the plans to take care of those future astronauts.

As H.R.P says on its own website, identifying and testing next generation medical care and crew health maintenance technologies.

We have two guests.

Nancy Fleming is element manager for Exploration Medical Capability, which you'll hear us referred to as XMC.

She began her career at NASA as an avionics and systems instructor for International Space

Station and Space Shuttle astronauts and for flight control team members.

She's worked in program management and in mission operations.

And Dr. Chris Lainhart is the XMC Element Scientist.

Lainhart is board certified in emergency medicine in the United States and Canada.

You'll find out why.

He also works in clinical shifts in the emergency department at Houston's Ben Taub Hospital.

That's a top trauma center in our city.

...