The significant distance from Earth is a key health risk to humans in space. > There is a 20 minute one-way communication delay to Earth from Mars. ### Key considerations: - Types of food and medicine to be packed for a multi-year trip - The shelf-life of food and medicine - The need for the space crew to be almost entirely self-sufficient in keeping each other healthy - Unlike space station crews, astonauts in Mars need to bring all the food, equipment and medical supplies they need ### Solutions: - NASA uses spaceflight experiences to figure out what medical events happen in space over time, and what is needed to solve these - Medical training is undetaken, involving learning how to provide an IV solution from purified water, how to perform ultrasound scans to monitor organ health, and lab testing when a member falls sick to enable a diagnosis and treatment plan - NASA is developing medical data architecture platform for spacecrafts, to provide space crews with actional insights that can help diagnose and treat ilness - Space resilient medications that preserve pharmaceuticals for long duration missions are used [[Space Travel at Scale]] | [[Getting to Space]] #pn