Human Physiology During Exposure to the Cave Environment: A Systematic Review With Implications for Aerospace Medicine

Conclusions: This review facilitates a further comparison of the proposed physiological impact of a subterranean space analog environment, with existing knowledge in related disciplines pertaining to human operative preparation under challenging environmental conditions. This comprehensive overview should stimulate more reproducible research on this topic and offer the opportunity to advance study design and focus future human research in the cave environment on noteworthy, reproducible projects. Introduction Rationale Long duration exploration and future human and robotic planetary surface missions are one of the long-term goals of space agencies (Robinson et al., 2007; Foing, 2016). Preparing for exploration-class missions to other planets requires a close replication of potential environmental and situational characteristics of extreme space conditions. Terrestrial space analogs offer a controlled environment for space research without leaving the planet (Pagel and Choukér, 2016). Since many years, isolation and confinement studies have been conducted in simulated scenarios such as the Mars500, Envihab and PlanHab facilities (Koch and Gerzer, 2008; Meigal and Fomina, 2016; Rittweger et al., 2016; Salvadego et al., 2018). In addition, real world scenarios based in extreme environmental conditions have been adapted to closely replicate the challenges of space exploration. What was previously the territory of only bold, enthusiastic explorers or honed ultra-end...
Source: Frontiers in Physiology - Category: Physiology Source Type: research