Producing Knowledge about Astronaut Health Risks: Navigating Interdisciplinary Actor-Networks

When astronauts return from a space mission they smile for the cameras, but behind the scenes they undergo grueling rehab to recover from the effects of space and may face long-term health consequences. Space flights lasting more than thirty days are considered long-duration and may impact astronauts' long-term health due to space exposure; this requires the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop new scientific, medical, and space operational knowledge to counteract and mitigate harmful effects. Understanding how knowledge production occurs is an important analytical and policy issue at NASA. This dissertation explores knowledge production about astronaut health risks using structured and unstructured interviews conducted at Johnson Space Center, the home of mission control for NASA. Applied Actor-Network Theory using a stage analysis shows how various human and non-human actors create this knowledge, constructing, combining, and passing facts across disciplinary boundaries about health risks. A normative analysis of informant statements demonstrates how knowledge and values regarding their understanding of long-term astronaut health risks impact the actions and policies developed at NASA. Steven Hilgartner (1992) suggests that risk research has done very little examination of the social construction of risk objects. He further suggests (1992) that studies fail to systematically examine the construction of causal attribution networks that link chains of risk objects to harm. (Hilgartner, 1992, p. 40-41) This study remedies that lack concerning space medicine by filling in the intellectual, social, and institutional processes that link space flight characteristics to physical harms. Doctor of Philosophy Safe long-duration human spaceflight requires developing new scientific, medical, and space operations knowledge to counteract and mitigate space's harmful effects. NASA is preparing for a mission to the Moon between 2023 to 2025 and then to Mars by 2035. Both missions will test astronaut adaptability, endurance, and resilience. NASA will also test the impact on long-term astronaut health as latent effects may appear decades after completing long-duration missions. Mars is approximately eighty-five million miles away, and a mission to Mars will take approximately nine months. The astronauts will remain on Mars between thirty and a thousand days before returning to Earth. Astronauts will experience physiological and psychological changes testing their ability to survive exposure to the space environment. Safe long-duration human spaceflight requires new scientific knowledge due to the uncertain but potentially severe impacts on individual health. Therefore, understanding how knowledge production occurs is an important analytical and policy issue at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The question driving my research is how does NASA approach knowledge production, consumption, and enactment in the social construction of risk and concern regarding astronaut health, and are there flaws in NASA's approach that create barriers to knowledge production and the ethical treatment of astronauts? Given the daunting amount of scientific, medical, and epidemiological knowledge necessary to sustain human life and counteract the hazardous environment of space, NASA and commercial companies must decide if sustained missions to the Moon and Mars are possible.