Spring Break
Sick in space: how space can help combat disease
Scott Conover
Issue date: 7/8/09 Section: Forum
Space holds many wonders. From minerals in ore-filled asteroids to comets filled with ice, water and dust, space holds many possibilities for the entrepreneurial settler, explorer or miner. There are numerous opportunities for those who would master the intricacies of space travel and settlement. One of these opportunities is less resource-related than it is human-related. In this case, it is human disease. Diseases, in their many forms, are clearly a leading form of death for many societies. Perhaps the best environment to study these diseases may be space.
Space provides three benefits with regard to disease: It allows for the isolation of diseases, it has a relatively controllable environment and it is an unusual environment for diseases. These characteristics mean that space could be useful for research on diseases as well for mining, production, and settlement.
In space, it would be possible to isolate a disease with relative ease. An asteroid converted for use in containment would be highly effective in isolating disease. Space has no inherent mediums to move diseases from one place to another, such as air or water. The vacuum of space would serve as an effective barrier to deadly diseases, and it would also mean that the disease could be observed and tested from a distance, allowing for a variety of tests without danger to the observers.
In addition, such isolation areas could be used to study various ailments of the human body, from gout to Alzheimer's disease. In this case, the isolation areas would serve as a way to remove distractions and interference from mundane environments and to control the testing conditions.
In terms of testing conditions, space allows for a relatively controllable environment. In a settled or mined asteroid, areas could be set aside for the purposes of testing different environmental conditions on diseases. Viruses could be subjected to a battery of tests, checking for various mutations. Bacteria could alternatively tested with various antibiotics and medicines in order to find out exactly how they react and become resistant to these ailments. At the end of such experiments, after the reactions and changes of the microorganisms had been recorded, the area could be cleansed of the bacteria, preventing them from becoming a future danger.
Space provides three benefits with regard to disease: It allows for the isolation of diseases, it has a relatively controllable environment and it is an unusual environment for diseases. These characteristics mean that space could be useful for research on diseases as well for mining, production, and settlement.
In space, it would be possible to isolate a disease with relative ease. An asteroid converted for use in containment would be highly effective in isolating disease. Space has no inherent mediums to move diseases from one place to another, such as air or water. The vacuum of space would serve as an effective barrier to deadly diseases, and it would also mean that the disease could be observed and tested from a distance, allowing for a variety of tests without danger to the observers.
In addition, such isolation areas could be used to study various ailments of the human body, from gout to Alzheimer's disease. In this case, the isolation areas would serve as a way to remove distractions and interference from mundane environments and to control the testing conditions.
In terms of testing conditions, space allows for a relatively controllable environment. In a settled or mined asteroid, areas could be set aside for the purposes of testing different environmental conditions on diseases. Viruses could be subjected to a battery of tests, checking for various mutations. Bacteria could alternatively tested with various antibiotics and medicines in order to find out exactly how they react and become resistant to these ailments. At the end of such experiments, after the reactions and changes of the microorganisms had been recorded, the area could be cleansed of the bacteria, preventing them from becoming a future danger.
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