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.

New and dynamically changing opportunities for commercial/private and civilian spaceflight raise the need for an examination of how to ethically guide space industry and community. This Perspective explores such considerations with respect to space traveler selection and human subject research.

Details

Title
Ethical considerations for the age of non-governmental space exploration
Author
Seylani, Allen 1 ; Galsinh, Aman Singh 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Tasoula, Alexia 3 ; I, Anu R 4 ; Camera, Andrea 5 ; Calleja-Agius, Jean 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Borg, Joseph 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Goel, Chirag 8 ; Kim, JangKeun 9   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Clark, Kevin B. 10 ; Das, Saswati 11 ; Arif, Shehbeel 12 ; Boerrigter, Michael 13 ; Coffey, Caroline 14   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Szewczyk, Nathaniel 14   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Mason, Christopher E. 9   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Manoli, Maria 15   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Karouia, Fathi 16   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Schwertz, Hansjörg 17   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Beheshti, Afshin 18   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Tulodziecki, Dana 19   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  University of California, Riverside. 92521 Botanical Garden Dr, School of Medicine, Riverside, USA (GRID:grid.266097.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2222 1582) 
2  University of Aberdeen, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, Aberdeen, UK (GRID:grid.7107.1) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 7291) 
3  FH Technikum, Department of Life Science Engineering, Vienna, Austria (GRID:grid.7107.1); Ohio University, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, USA (GRID:grid.20627.31) (ISNI:0000 0001 0668 7841) 
4  MVR Cancer Centre and Research Institute, Department of Cancer Biology and Therapeutics, Calicut, India (GRID:grid.20627.31); MVR Cancer Centre and Research Institute, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Calicut, India (GRID:grid.20627.31) 
5  University of Oslo, Department of Molecular Medicine, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Oslo, Norway (GRID:grid.5510.1) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8921) 
6  University of Malta, Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Msida, Malta (GRID:grid.4462.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 2176 9482) 
7  University of Malta, Department of Applied Biomedical Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, Msida, Malta (GRID:grid.4462.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 2176 9482) 
8  Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA (GRID:grid.16753.36) (ISNI:0000 0001 2299 3507) 
9  Weill Cornell Medicine, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, New York, USA (GRID:grid.471410.7) (ISNI:0000 0001 2179 7643) 
10  Cures Within Reach, Chicago, USA (GRID:grid.430052.0) (ISNI:0000 0004 9228 0125); Netherlands & Stanford University, Peace Innovation Institute, The Hague 2511, Palo Alto, USA (GRID:grid.168010.e) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8956); Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Biometrics and Nanotechnology Councils, New York, USA (GRID:grid.246210.3) (ISNI:0000 0004 0441 6628) 
11  Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences, Department of Biochemistry, New Delhi, India (GRID:grid.246210.3) 
12  Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Center for Data-Driven Discovery in Biomedicine, Philadelphia, USA (GRID:grid.239552.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0680 8770) 
13  Deep Space Biology, San Francisco, USA (GRID:grid.239552.a) 
14  Ohio University, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, USA (GRID:grid.20627.31) (ISNI:0000 0001 0668 7841) 
15  University of Aberdeen, School of Law, Aberdeen, UK (GRID:grid.7107.1) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 7291) 
16  Exobiology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center, Blue Marble Space Institute for Science, Moffett Field, USA (GRID:grid.419075.e) (ISNI:0000 0001 1955 7990); Space Research Within Reach, San Francisco, USA (GRID:grid.419075.e); Baylor College of Medicine, Center for Space Medicine, Houston, USA (GRID:grid.39382.33) (ISNI:0000 0001 2160 926X) 
17  Molecular Medicine Program at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA (GRID:grid.223827.e) (ISNI:0000 0001 2193 0096); Division of Occupational Medicine at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA (GRID:grid.223827.e) (ISNI:0000 0001 2193 0096); Occupational Medicine at Billings Clinic Bozeman, Bozeman, USA (GRID:grid.417777.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 0376 2772) 
18  Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Cambridge, USA (GRID:grid.66859.34) (ISNI:0000 0004 0546 1623); Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, Moffett Field, US (GRID:grid.419075.e) (ISNI:0000 0001 1955 7990) 
19  Purdue University, Department of Philosophy, West Lafayette, USA (GRID:grid.169077.e) (ISNI:0000 0004 1937 2197) 
Pages
4774
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44357-x
ProQuest document ID
3066598777
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.