September Public Meeting | The human body in space: The medicine of human spaceflight

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome!

We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.

The meeting was streamed live and is now available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel - SAA.TV.

The human body in space: The medicine of human spaceflight, surviving low earth orbit and beyond with Dr Marc Jurblum

Human spaceflight has always been constrained by two dimensions. Engineering flight hardware capabilities and supporting the human body to survive spaceflight. There is no more extreme environment for human survival than the hazards of interstellar space. This makes spaceflight a unique opportunity and a powerful motivator for biomedical research, as we try to apply modern medicine and technological advances to push the boundaries of how long we can keep human beings alive and productive away from our native Earth’s biosphere. In this talk Marc will discuss the physical challenges of human spaceflight on the human body and their management in modern space medicine as well as considerations for cis-lunar missions, the challenges of Mars and true long duration spaceflight.

About the Speaker:

Dr Marc Jurblum is a training psychiatrist working with St Vincent’s Mental Health Service in Melbourne and a member of the Space Association of Australia.

Dr Jurblum completed an Honours in biomedical sciences focusing on immunology and stem cell biology in 2004. He completed postgraduate medical degree with Deakin University in 2011 and has since pursued a research career in space medicine. He completed the International Space University's Southern Hemisphere Space Program and a Graduate Certificate in Space Psychology with Professor Sheryl Bishop of UTMB/NASA in 2014. Dr Jurblum was involved in research conducted at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station, with Crew 134 into psychological interventions for managing long duration space flight and isolated and confined environments (ICES). Dr Jurblum is a committee member of the space life sciences sub-committee for the Australasian Society of Aerospace Medicine (ASAM) and a member of the Aerospace Medical Association (ASMA), the Space Medicine Association (SMA), Space Association of Australia (SAA), Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) and the Mars Society Australia (MSA).

Event Photo: 

Dr Joe Kerwin examines Commander Pete Conrad on Skylab 2, 1973 - Photo courtesy of NASA

Agenda