“It's like, I would say it's borderline criminal in the sense that there is the potential for us on the research side to be missing important information because of this incomplete data sharing… It seems that every time we send people into space on a more ambitious mission, longer, farther away, whatever it is, some new medical thing happens. And it sure would be nice to be able to anticipate those things and not just be taken by surprise all the time.”
Blue Dot · October 2026
The spaceflight researcher was describing the wall between astronauts' medical records and research data. He knows which crew member got motion sick on one commercial flight but can't use it, because the rest of the crew didn't agree to share. He stressed the privacy rules exist for good reasons and that things are improving.
Transcript
…Well, if somebody is doing one of my neurovestibular experiments in space, it would sure be helpful if I knew that that person had taken a medication for sleep, headache, nausea, whatever it might be, before they did my experiment. I don't necessarily get to know that because that's medical data.
Can you ask them about that, though? Can you just, you know, can you request that, you know, voluntarily they let you know what medications they're taking?
…flights, I have the information because they filled out questionnaires. For some of the flights, I don't have the information. But on one of them, in particular, I know who got sick because somebody told me who was on the flight, but I can't use that information because it's off the record, right? That person told me, but the rest of the crew didn't agree to tell me. So it's very unfortunate. It's like, I would say it's borderline criminal in the sense that there is the potential for us on the research side to be missing important information because of this incomplete data sharing, let's say. I don't want to say the sky is falling on this, right? It is improving, but I think there's room for improvement. And it leads me to a really critical point, which is that it seems that every time we send people into space on a more ambitious mission, longer, farther away, whatever it is, some new medical thing happens. And it sure would be nice to be able to anticipate. Of those…
We're going to take a short break, but stay with us. When we return, we'll continue our conversation with Mark Shelhamer. Mark is the director of the Johns Hopkins Human Space Flight Laboratory and the author of the new book, Are We Ready for Mars? I'm Dave Schloem, and you are listening to Blue…
Yeah. Wow. I'm really glad you pointed that out and that we were able to sneak a little physics lesson in there surreptitiously for people because I think they, you know, it may sound pedantic, but it's important to get your facts straight about the science if you're going to be talking about…
It helps people to understand, you know, when they get that concept of, oh, they're falling around the Earth. You know, now I understand that. It's not that there's no, it's like I say, if, you know, if you stopped, if you stopped going 17,000 miles an hour, guess what happens? You fall right back…
More from Blue Dot
