A 21st Century Space Suit with Dr. Ana Diaz Artiles

[00:00:00] It is no secret that space is a hostile environment. Engineers and scientists have teamed up for decades to keep astronauts safe. Thanks to their combined efforts, astronauts are able to live inside of spacecraft such as the International Space Station and venture into the void in extra vehicular suits.

[00:00:21] These iconic EVA suits in use today are essentially just many spacecraft, so as humanity looks to diversify our activity and evolve our unhappetation of space, we must also evolve these suits.

[00:00:35] What have historically been bulky and exhausting bubbles of protection for astronauts and spacewalks must adapt to fit in everyday utility while still maintaining their robust safety features. So just how our modern scientists and engineers planning on creating workflows are the most technologically advanced job uniform ever designed.

[00:00:57] Dominic and I look for answers to these questions with an aerospace engineer and bio-astronautics researcher on today's episode of Spherical Cows. As always, I'm Nick Saba and I'm Dominic Tanzillo. Hello everyone, welcome back to Spherical Cows.

[00:01:24] Today we wanted to introduce the assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M.

[00:01:31] He's also the lead investigator for the bio-astronautics and human performance lab where she works on a variety of projects which were really excited to talk about, including a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept-funded project dealing with space suits. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Anna Diaz Artilis.

[00:01:51] Thank you so much for having me, very excited to have a nice conversation today. And I think the first thing that really we want to launch with our conversation has to do with your lab, you know, the name bio-astronautics and human performance will first of all.

[00:02:07] Bio-astronautics is so much of what we talk about in our course and on the show, but then also the topic of human performance is really interesting something that we've talked about, but not necessarily highlighted so importantly.

[00:02:19] So maybe just first of all, what does your lab do? There's a lot of themes that I see, but what are some of the central ideas that you talk about in that lab, and why is human performance so important in the context of space travel and research?

[00:02:34] Yeah absolutely, so my lab is really interested in human performance in extreme environments. So those environments can be a lot of things and so not only one of my most interests relates to human spaceflight.

[00:02:48] So most of my projects revolve around human spaceflight but we could also potentially apply those ideas to other aspects in the military domain or remote environments like Antarctica, these kind of things, so not necessarily human spaceflight, but it's certainly what we are almost interested about in our passion.

[00:03:11] It's there. So we're interested in multiple aspects, I guess I have broad interests. So those interesting include physiological aspects as well as behavioral health aspects. So we are looking into different projects on those topics and I'm happy to talk more about those in a second.

[00:03:33] But then we're also interested in developing new technologies to improve that human performance. And one of those projects is what you mentioned about the NAYAC projects and on space of development to a great example of our technology development projects.

[00:03:51] So so lots of different things spacesuits, health or gravity environments, behavioral health. So yeah, because that's summarized well who we are and the kind of research that we're interested in. You're an engineer at heart, right? Right. Yes.

[00:04:10] So you're finding the actual like mechanical solutions to these problems which I only emphasize because you're not only hitting the physical health part of staying alive and healthy in space or extreme environments but also the mental health aspect of it.

[00:04:28] Yeah, absolutely. I'm an engineer by training but I've always been interested in the human performance aspects of it. Of this kind of things, my research is definitely multidisciplinary and I'm applying not only engineering but also another you know these physiology aspects and kinesiology aspects.

[00:04:52] And in particular, for example, I have kinesiology students that are working with me in the lab. So definitely very very multidisciplinary and that I think that's definitely a strength for us because we can apply both engineering principles and modeling approaches we do a lot of modeling as well.

[00:05:12] And then we also benefit from you know, conducting human experiments and collecting physiological variables that's something that maybe traditionally more.

[00:05:23] You know people with other backgrounds could potentially be more have more practices with those things so we combine both things in the lab and I think it's when make us a little bit unique on that aspect.

[00:05:40] And when I was talking about human performance part of that question is why does NASA or space flight care so much about the topic of human performance or perhaps a better way of phrasing the question is what about space poses a threat to performing well and working in the environment.

[00:05:58] Yeah, absolutely. So the space environment brings a lot of issues against the human body or human health.

[00:06:07] Certainly we have human physiology because we remove these gravity and then while we don't really remove gravity but gravity is not being felt by subjects or like by astronauts. I'm not sure if you have talks about this. Gravity is still present, which is not don't feel it.

[00:06:27] So that causes a lot of different things for example, muscle, acrophied bone loss. There is a cardiovascular redistribution of fluids because gravity is not pulling down the fluids towards the lower body. And that is going to cause the body to adapt to this new condition.

[00:06:46] And then we have seen traditionally we have seen astronauts coming back from space with you know, way less muscle, way less bone. They have issues with cardiovascular system. They are also exposed to radiation.

[00:07:02] And radiation is something that I know a little bit less about. I'm not a radiation person, but it's definitely one of main risks for astronauts when they go go to space. So so these are some of the aspects concerning physiological changes.

[00:07:19] Then on the other hand, we can have behavioral issues and more mental health issues more related to the fact that they are in an isolated or confined environment with a relatively small group of people far away from their family and their supporters.

[00:07:37] And that is just going to get worse when we think about long trips to Mars with long time delays and these kind of things.

[00:07:47] Yeah, I think it's very interesting that in space everyone always knows that there is no gravity right? That's probably the most well known back to about space.

[00:07:57] And so when you think of the dangerous space that's clearly one of the things that comes to mind and how it changes in more of your body.

[00:08:04] But that's not one of the immediate dangers. Right? That's kind of a long-term health effects issue with your project in designing you have design spaces, right? Or work on the space of concept. Yeah, sorry. The NIA Steve project, right?

[00:08:28] Right. So I've been working for a few years on a space of issues and one of the main issues that I've been looking at is to try to understand better the human spacesuit interaction.

[00:08:43] The space suits are really big balloons. Pressurized balloons. So you can think about a big balloon that you try to bend and then if you release it, it's going to come back to its natural precision because it's highly pressurized.

[00:08:58] As soon as he's inside, it always has to fight against the suit and things are becoming better and better but it's still a harsh environment. To be especially for those long EVAs, long extra vehicle activities they do up to six eight hours.

[00:09:18] So the concept that we are looking into here in the lab, it's this idea of adding new technologies to try to improve this interaction.

[00:09:28] Not only with the suit but also with the environment because being in such a balloon as I mentioned, makes you really hard to make it makes it really hard to interact with the environment, feeling some frogs or collecting something from the environment.

[00:09:44] Right, so gravity doesn't necessarily cause immediate health risk but when you're talking about EVAs where you would use the large clunky suits, the ones that you were designing the concept for.

[00:09:56] All of the other protections for the hazards of space are what causes that suit to be clunky and the lack of gravity then can lead to dangers in the fact that you don't have the same mobility.

[00:10:08] Correct. Well, Nick, I think if I may just rephrase it that the current suit is designed to compensate right for the complete lack of atmosphere and space really among other issues and then all of us on this produces a bulky hard to manage suit which is you know where the air is now being used as a compressive force.

[00:10:31] Right, that's exactly right. So you have these highly personalized environment that it's sort of giving you an atmosphere so you can breathe inside and you can stay alive in their suits really.

[00:10:44] You can think about a space suit like a mini space crafts like a one person space crafts.

[00:10:52] So it's relatively hard to move to moving there. So one of the things we're trying to look into is into the possibility of adding self robotic technology to actually help you with those movements.

[00:11:07] So this is the same idea of using exoskeletums that have been you know proposed for other.

[00:11:14] For other and not very application. Maybe it's already applications and such. So just the same the same idea, but instead of these hard components that are always a bad idea when you want to.

[00:11:28] You know, hard components close to the human you want to have more compliant elements and this new software bodies that are coming. Coming along in the past few years those are a great great candidate for that.

[00:11:43] So we envision you know futuristic space suit at a space suit that has an internal software body clear basically covering the entire body that it sort of accentuated when needed in the different joints to help you with motion.

[00:11:57] So again, this is the futuristic concept and we are just starting to think about it and to build some small prototypes. But yeah, we have a vision and we are putting some energy to try to develop development.

[00:12:15] And then part of those software bodies as I understand it could also be the potential to combat a constant fear of health researchers in the space context which is decompressive. Sickness or decompression illness. How does the software bodies also may be effect the amount of pressure.

[00:12:34] Resetion needed and the risks imposed there in. Great point so that's a secondary benefit of having these full bodies of robotic layer if we are able to create a layer that provides you mechanical counter pressure.

[00:12:51] And for the audience in mechanical counter pressure is just this idea of generating pressure by putting something really really really tied on your skin mechanically it's it's name says.

[00:13:06] So so using this mechanical counter pressure that would be fantastic because that would allow us or to have a space suit with less gas pressure.

[00:13:16] And having less gas pressure it's always a good idea of your thinking about mobility the more gas pressure the the the worst the mobility is going to be.

[00:13:26] So whatever level we can put on mechanical counter pressure that's always going to be beneficial for for mobility purposes for sure. Right now does the mobility issue cause a significant risk in normal operations. So right now we only use the space suits to float around.

[00:13:51] So our the current space suits are weren't designed for walking or not planetary surface and that's okay because we don't need them. We just need them to be around the international space station and I guess at the time when when the shuttle was there around the shuttle.

[00:14:07] But thinking about the future now we not only need to float around, but we also need to walk we need to bend we need to build a habitat and we need to stay in a rover we should drive around.

[00:14:24] So now we are talking about a totally different context and you know new spaces are coming on the market right the XEMU it's it's the next the next generation spaces and you know I haven't put my hands on one yet.

[00:14:42] You know they they have better mobility especially in the lower body because this is space that has been designed for precisely for local motion.

[00:14:53] Some some sort it's it's way better than the X-161 but we still claim that whatever help we can get for example for the from the server body technology to help with motion.

[00:15:07] Anyway, it's going to still be a gas pressurized space so anything we can we can do to help it is just going to be be a good benefit to have.

[00:15:17] Right so maybe a way of thinking about it is that the soft robotics has a twofold effect the first of which is its mechanical assistance.

[00:15:28] In some ways you can have the robotic even provide extra strength or force for any operation and then second the astronaut doesn't have to fight as hard like you said if you're inside a balloon.

[00:15:38] You're having to constantly fight the balloon in your environment and so this kind of twofold effect would greatly increase both mobility and then help performance because you're not tired from fighting as I understand some of the first astronauts on the moon.

[00:15:51] And in a similarly pressurized suits were really tired after you know the first five minutes of bouncing around it wasn't exactly as fun as the footage we have you believe. There are lots of funny videos about this and they were hoping more than walking as you were saying.

[00:16:08] And yeah, definitely that has to go has to be with with that lack of mobility in the lower body and they just found that that was the best way to move around even if they fell here on there. Have you lived?

[00:16:23] And then part of the suit concept you've also put forward this really exciting is the incorporation of biometric sensors that in part is maybe interfacing with the soft robotics but also detecting where joints and movements are to again avoid extra pressure and risks.

[00:16:40] And maybe even measuring the physiology of the astronaut underneath or you're able to add a little bit more details on how increase biometric data might be important for future missions and spacesuits. Yeah, absolutely so these are you know I mentioned we are adding.

[00:17:00] Additional technologies to improve the is basic performance so the first one is a several body clear the other two are related to these optoelectronic sensors that you just mentioned and those optoelectronic sensors are going to be on the outside of the space.

[00:17:19] And then covering basically all the surface embedded in a self healing membrane. So for the self healing membrane that's I guess that's more obvious if you get a puncture in a gas press rise spaces that's obviously really bad.

[00:17:35] So this membrane would allow you to you know just by putting a little bit of pressure just you know very quickly sealed that whole and then make sure you get back to safety.

[00:17:47] When when this happened the optoelectronic sensors are sensor that there's able to capture different motions of movement so you can bend them and you're going to get signals out of it you can stretch them and you can press them.

[00:18:04] So all that is going to be real time feedback information that you can get. While for example going for certain rocks on on the surface of a planetary surface interacting with the environment you can feel the environment as opposed to.

[00:18:22] Today with this bulky gloves is just really really hard to feel anything from those and I would also add these work is actually in collaboration with professor professor Rob Shepherd at Cornell University. So a big shout out to him too for all the amazing work you're doing.

[00:18:44] And the suit concept is called the smart suit yes so I'm imagining it was called that because of all of these technologies that you want to add on all the biometric sensors.

[00:18:56] Right we always want to have a catty name to it worked to get the audience interested thank you.

[00:19:07] So as I love all things space medicine I'm also a big shows and movie guy so one of the shows that came out earlier this year they the second season of for all mankind on Netflix launched.

[00:19:24] And the last episode of the second season I already see you making a scrunched face I don't know. I know it's a really I haven't seen it. I don't know if you're watching no that's okay go ahead.

[00:19:38] We were in the last episode and event occurs will say that where two astronauts must exit the habitat that is built on the moon in this fictitious world. And go and do a task on the outside of the station however they do not have access to EVA suits.

[00:20:00] So their big plan is they put they they don oxygen masks and then they wrap themselves as tightly as possible inductive. So my question for you is the kind of mechanics behind this are sound right the idea that if you apply enough mechanical pressure to your body.

[00:20:25] The vacuum of spaceball you know really hurt you too badly well it will but not to point where it might kill you immediately.

[00:20:37] But how I want to know how ridiculous this sounds to you if you feel like that could if you would ever be able to have enough duct tape to pull that off.

[00:20:46] I was going to say what other like that's the most basic form of a space suit I could think of and it's lacking clearly a lot of other protection.

[00:20:56] Right so that is that is the reminds me very clearly to the the pure mechanical counter pressure suit and now we'll refer to to the biosuit I'm not sure if you have for this concept before.

[00:21:13] But it's this idea it's this idea has been developed by professor Dave and human. And MIT and she has been working on this concept for for many years.

[00:21:24] So this is this idea of just getting the entire suit just made us mechanical the pressure that you need comes exclusively from mechanical counter pressure.

[00:21:36] So ideally if you can pull that together and make that work you will need any gas press rise around your body everything will come from these very very tight.

[00:21:48] So that's the idea of how to do the pressure that is supposed to get as much pressure as the typical pressure that you get. And that could in theory work given some caveats because there is the caveats about the head you still need to breathe oxygen.

[00:22:10] And then you know how are you going to do the seal between the head and the body. And then you're also breathing so your chest is expanding and that's going to change a little bit sort of thing so.

[00:22:22] So that problem has not been solved yet and that's one of the main issues of mechanical counter pressure because we don't know how to do it properly.

[00:22:35] And also like how can you ensure that your entire body has a constant pressure equally everywhere even in places like your armpit or some other places that are a little bit hard so to.

[00:22:50] You know to make it work and while moving at the same time so it's definitely a really hard problem about some research and professors have been working on this idea for a long time.

[00:23:03] But but I think the more realistic at least closer in time solution is going to be coming up with something hybrid that has both mechanical counter pressure but also you have.

[00:23:21] These other layer of gas pressure and you can sort of use the mechanical counter pressures and extra benefit more than I really need this.

[00:23:34] And you know they're all these traders and that's part of the work that we have been doing in the lab to try to understand what if we have this much pressure here and this much pressure here how is that going to affect.

[00:23:50] And you know how is that going to the pent also the amount of pressure we have in the habitat or the amount of pressure we have in the suit all these are variables that are going to affect the entire operations of using a space suit and mobility.

[00:24:08] And you know if you change pressure mobility is going to change if you change pressure. Pre-rethane requirements are going to change and and you know they just have a very very interesting trade of.

[00:24:20] With lots of different variables that it I think is pretty interesting and we have been looking a little bit on those things in the lab this past year.

[00:24:31] So happy that you mentioned both the pre-breathing aspect and then the composition of the air and the suit which is kind of a follow on because.

[00:24:38] Those are two areas that are very relevant for you know currently it takes hours to get ready to leave the spacecraft or to exit the habitat and that's massive amounts of time.

[00:24:49] And in a different way you're limited in an extra vehicular capacity because we don't necessarily want to expose astronauts to long periods of pure oxygen right now they have a reduced pressure but pure oxygen environment.

[00:25:02] And now we're starting to worry about oxygen toxicity and damage to the lungs. And so an alternative a smart suit in this context would be able to preserve health and save time which I think would be you know.

[00:25:14] Very valuable to space mission planners people who really do care about making sure that. You know astronauts times are utilized maximally efficiently but that also we're not exposing them to extra health risks where possible.

[00:25:31] Right so this is one of the applications of mechanical counter pressure you can use it at the very beginning when you are getting ready for an EVA you can use it as additional pressure in the suit.

[00:25:46] So that from the mobility perspective is not good but for now at that stage you're not worried about mobility you're worried about I want to get out and start doing my task.

[00:25:59] So if you find a way to reduce the pressure difference between your habitat and the space so that is going to translate into less per breathing time therefore less.

[00:26:13] Like better for operations in terms of time time land and such so another concept and that I can think of is this idea of.

[00:26:23] valuable pressure suits and this is not only my idea this has been in out there for for a long time but it's this idea of starting your VA with a higher pressure.

[00:26:36] Regardless how you bring that pressure right I'm advocating for a mix between gas and mechanical counter pressure but this could also be valuable just using gas pressure.

[00:26:48] keeping this pressure higher the beginning so you can get out the door as soon as possible maybe you don't have the best mobility.

[00:26:55] But that's okay you can start your EVA and then over time you actually keep pretty everything because there's still in the suit breathing pure oxygen so over time you should be able to reduce safely that pressure.

[00:27:11] And up to the point that it's reasonable and then later on in the EVA you get more and more and more mobility keeping your risk of decompression sickness at the same level or constant.

[00:27:27] That's actually that's actually fascinating just almost decompressing as the mission goes on and so you know as you're leaving you can have a high pressure but then when you're on the job site you know you need to travel let's say certain distance.

[00:27:39] That's when all of a sudden you have that low pressure words the really sweet spot your your suit isn't this massive balloon that you're constantly fighting against.

[00:27:47] So just for reference the current procedure for pre-breathing in an EVA is to sit and breathe pure oxygen for around four hours before you can then continue on with the EVA and the rest of the checklist to go out into space.

[00:28:04] So that's like essentially if you're leaving for work in the morning you wrap all of your joints and band aids and then you sit at the front door for four hours before you leave.

[00:28:14] Not necessarily the best recipe for a life on Mars if your goal is to walk outside every day. Absolutely another yeah definitely four hours that's that's that's too much time and we want astronauts to be doing other things there. It's something that.

[00:28:38] I think it hasn't been decided yet is actually what the habitat on Mars is going to look like in terms of atmosphere composition on Mars or even on the moon.

[00:28:52] But some concepts that are out there are thinking about having an atmosphere reach in oxygen so that will make things easier in terms of the comparison sickness because you don't even need to do any pre-breathing.

[00:29:08] But again you have an higher contact of oxygen that could be potentially a little bit more dangerous and you know there's all these trade-offs that I think are really really interesting.

[00:29:20] So so the atmosphere composition it's also something to keep in mind when thinking about this is not only that the suit pressure which can also change but type of atmosphere we're using. And I would make reference to the shadow.

[00:29:38] I don't know if you know this but the shadow had two different set points so it has the normal set point which is you know one atmosphere that the same that we have here on earth the same that we have in the ISS. So that is 21% oxygen.

[00:29:56] But also whenever they had a nevea plant they had another set point with a little I think it was 26% if I remember correctly so they would change the set point.

[00:30:10] So I make someone of time in advance and I guess it's like one day in advance or so so that would make the pre-breathing procedures way shorter that follow in day.

[00:30:22] So they were able to change that that in the shadow but they cannot do this in the ISS. And then I would say that I would be able to do this in the ISS. I don't know maybe it was designed for that I don't really know. Okay.

[00:30:39] So moving I think a little bit away from the immediate pressures and threats of oxygenation pressures and deep pressure relations.

[00:30:47] I was also really interested in your doctoral research which had a lot to do with the prolonged biggest stressor which you know in my estimation causes about half of all the problems we are worried about which is the lack of gravity.

[00:31:03] And as you said it's not really a lack of gravity, it's lack of felt gravity. The way that orbits work human beings aren't necessarily feeling gravity the same way we do when we're on earth and we have the ground pushing back up against us.

[00:31:15] And so that is really an impediment to deep space travel causing a whole host of issues. And so my question which revolves around your doctoral thesis I believe which is the usage and the implementation of artificial gravity.

[00:31:32] How you know necessary do you estimate artificial gravity to be if we ever want to make it to Mars or even further? And then how realistic is it that we are able to incorporate it onto future space missions on space shuttles. Thank you for that question.

[00:31:51] The artificial gravity is one of my favorite topics and I am very huge advocate of artificial gravity for human space flight applications. So you're right we see all these issues, physiological issues that happened in space because of microgravity I guess that's the formal term.

[00:32:15] So the best option would be to put gravity back in and I think no one these agrees with that statement. The problem is that we don't really know how to implement it because we can go to the engineer and say okay.

[00:32:30] We want like a designer of the next space station and it's going to come to us scientists and say okay what do you need what's the artificial gravity level that you need.

[00:32:43] And I'm going to say I don't know because we don't know how long do you need to be under artificial gravity do you need to be 24 hours and go with this huge spacecraft that rotates continuously or can you go with something more like.

[00:32:59] And so you're ready to send a few words where you go in and out and spend extra amount of time on it. So these are the questions that. You know this idea of understanding what is gravity doing what what are the effects of gravity may be sound simple.

[00:33:17] But it's actually very complicated and that's part of not the most of what my research program is about to try to understand. So you mentioned my doctoral thesis at the time I studied.

[00:33:36] Surraders and deforecation combined with exercise and I was looking at different cardiovascular responses and trying to start you know trying to generate a story generating this this knowledge base to say okay if we put someone under this particular gravity level.

[00:33:57] This is what the responses are going to look like and and you know I conducted my my experiment for my PhD but now in my lab.

[00:34:08] I'm continuing that that work and I have one of my projects is an assapended project to precisely generate what we call this dose response curves using different analogs of alter gravity.

[00:34:22] So it's this this the idea is relatively simple so what what happens at zero g what happens at one g and then what happens in between and what is that core of look like.

[00:34:34] So so we are using different instruments to change gravity here on the ground and unfortunately we can really change gravity.

[00:34:43] So we are you know we always have some some limitations here but we are using tilt tables we just tilt people from from supine to upright or even head down completely head down.

[00:34:56] And the idea is to measure what are the changes that the cardiovascular changes when we change the gravity vector we are changing direction.

[00:35:08] Or we are using an instrument that is called lower body negative pressure to generate or the static stress at different levels so again we are mapping that curve.

[00:35:20] And finally we are also going to use a survey to send a few that it's been built here at Texas A&M so we will also use that device to generate this curves from.

[00:35:35] But we call zero gravity which is really being supine to higher g levels and we are collecting multiple cardiovascular variables that include classical continuous blood pressure, harry and harry variability. Also we are taking ultrasound measurements of the internal duglow vein which we have seen some issues recently.

[00:36:02] We are also collecting some eye measurements because you know there is a reason list of issues with vision and the eye changes. So all these metrics we are collecting to try to generate these dosage response curves of gravity and see how these variables change with gravity.

[00:36:26] I think a lot of people have a tough time understanding just the concept of artificial gravity and maybe just breaking that down in a way that maybe people at home understand as well.

[00:36:38] How does how would adding you know as you talked about a centrifuge how does that enable people to experience the effects the mimic of gravity.

[00:36:49] So why does the best way to understand this is thinking about a roller coaster maybe when you are not roller coaster and you are going from point that it's up and then you go down and then you sort of you know get really pushed or or a loop yes that's great like a 360 loop right so you're being pushed against the rails or your seed.

[00:37:18] But because of this centrifugal force that you're generating while rotating you know roller coaster loop for example so that's centrifugal forest and that sort of the idea can we use this centrifugal forest to to generate.

[00:37:38] Gravity and I'm measuring my words because I don't want to say constant gravity it would be constant gravity. When you have an entire spacecraft that it's rotating continuously. For example probably the audience is familiar with 2001 or this in space you have this big we are rotating.

[00:38:00] So so that will be an example of continuous artificial gravity and then an example of intermediate artificial gravity will be.

[00:38:10] Really a small device that you can strap yourself in and start rotating within your space module the model is not rotating but the device is with you on it. And you know the gradient that your experience in is going to be a little bit different and.

[00:38:34] You know it's a really interesting research question that we are looking into. Are those differences important or or not or what are those different really really translating into when when you're looking at your own responses.

[00:38:51] So that that second item that you mentioned there's really fascinating having a small device is currently for example astronauts need to exercise.

[00:38:59] Two and a half hours a day on the ISS to make sure that their bones and muscles don't atrophy maybe part of that or afterwards they go for a relaxing or maybe I don't know how fun time on a on big centrifuge and I think that actually really does help exemplify.

[00:39:16] Part of the problem that we're trying to fix if anyone has ever worked in a science lab and they use one of those giant rotating centrifuges to separate out the different fluids.

[00:39:26] That's because you're effectively applying you know a force to pull the fluids out and to separate them well that could also be kind of what we're doing to our blood because our blood normally is being pulled to our feet.

[00:39:38] And so to mimic that in space right we would have this device that you could rotate around on. Right and even I would I might have a huge advocate for using centrifugation sorry exercise while being centrifugated.

[00:39:54] I was just going to say are there any massive benefits for using centrifuge over the current like resistant band weights and workouts that they have out there right now.

[00:40:04] Well, unfortunately this trade answers is very not to use we don't know because we have never had anyone in space going through that experiment that you just meant to that intervention.

[00:40:17] So that's part of like a wish I could go and send something to space and do that and I mean you you laugh but this has been proposed over and over and over again during the past.

[00:40:31] Multiple years and actually my advisor Larry Young and personally he passed away last year. We he was the he would have a kid for our universal gravity he was the already with a gravity guy.

[00:40:46] And he has always been advocated for that multiple proposals to the ISS have been have been sent and you know a lot of I can understand that lot of risks and getting a huge rotating machine.

[00:41:00] It's it's probably a huge endeavor and a huge risk to take at this point.

[00:41:06] But maybe in the future and the future next stage space station we'll get dry and we'll get dry and we'll get dry and but so far we are we're doing what we kind of here on the ground.

[00:41:18] So so far we have been doing acute studies so that means really short term responses right you get someone you put in our send a view and you say.

[00:41:28] Store exercising for 10 minutes or I'm just gonna spend you for 10 minutes and I'm gonna take a bunch of measurements during those 10 minutes. This is what we're doing so far the next step would be. Implementing this as part of a bed rest study.

[00:41:47] So in those studies you get people in a bed for a long time to really make this long term. It's a change that people go through when they are in space and and I unfortunately haven't participated in any of those as the investigator.

[00:42:04] Well, I guess not also not as the subjects but some of these have happened already in Europe and the idea is like well what if if you use the send of you to while you're.

[00:42:18] And the study you know the hypothesis is like people that use the send of you to are going to be better shaved and people who don't use the send of you. So so those studies are starting to come along.

[00:42:33] But yeah, you can imagine those studies are very expensive very long and you can only test one thing at a time. So every small research question takes a year or two and a lot of money to to do so. So it's going slow but it's going.

[00:42:54] I'm not super familiar with the world of central fuel studies in space, but would there be any large like swads of data or anything you think it'd be missing from an analogous. Like animal study for instance putting rats in a center of use on the ISS.

[00:43:16] So I think there has been a few definitely wanted to studies with animals. I'm not super familiar with those. I'm not an animal person in terms of research. But there has been there has been some.

[00:43:37] Some studies on this for sure not not many but I think a handful of studies. I mean I imagine if you're talking about exercising on a center of future it's probably pretty hard to get rats to exercise. Right right. There's a lot that is missing from those.

[00:43:57] I think they included exercise in those studies but I'll need to to check and see what has been done. Haven't thought about this in a while like at the animal side of things.

[00:44:09] So now we also wanted to ask a little bit about how you got to studying bio astronauts in the first place and what your life journey has looked like.

[00:44:20] Where did you say that you made maybe a move necessarily from engineering side of things which might be more focused on systems to also including the human physiology and human factor side of things? So yeah my background it's a traditional aerospace engineer.

[00:44:38] And I decided to study it was always very passionate about space exploration and I remember when I was 17. And I was looking into what I'm going to study was still in high school.

[00:44:57] And I remember seeing these mini series on TV that he was called from the Earth to the Moon.

[00:45:06] And it's a wonderful I mean it's it's old now but for me that was a really really life change in and it was the whole story about how we got to like the Apollo program and how we got to the moon.

[00:45:20] And you know at the time we didn't have Netflix or anything so it was really like you need to be there on Saturday, Saturday, Saturday or whatever time it was.

[00:45:30] To watch this and I was like this is what I want to do and then my goal was I want to be a fly director like NASA fly director this is what I wanted to be.

[00:45:41] So it's like this is how I'm going to go there. So so definitely I wanted to study that engineering something you know related to engineering say one for aerospace and in the Spain where I'm from.

[00:45:56] There was only one option it was more adonautics than astronauts now things are changing and people have a lot of to be says, but it was more about planes and such.

[00:46:07] And you know great I also liked that it was definitely related I had a couple of classes of space and I was always taking like a space classes. And when I finished I found a job at Indiana space which is the European company the launchers the European rocket.

[00:46:26] So it was like well this you know getting close to my goal is not exactly. You know that the NASA fly director but I'm here launching rockets right.

[00:46:36] So and I remember thinking this is the the first time I launched a rocket in the Nissan control this is the best job in the world like I haven't so lucky to just land here my first year I'm never going to move this is this is it.

[00:46:55] So I stay there for five years and you know the brilliant I guess this is how we evolve and we mature and we start finding what what we want to do.

[00:47:06] I always had these like there's no humans there's no humans and I ran five it's a rocket that doesn't launch humans and is that I need to move to the states and just get into there say quit my job when I was 29 and I went back to school to storm my PhD.

[00:47:27] And you know these these topics more related to bi- Astronautics and again I was really lucky to get into this this lab at MIT the man vehicle lab and now it has that a different name space systems lab. And the human systems lab sorry.

[00:47:45] And yeah this is where I started to learn all these aspects and then took some physiology classes and human factors and all these things that I was less familiar with.

[00:47:57] But but yeah I guess I was just pursuing my dreams and definitely took some effort right and big decisions at some point that you know when you're in those low moments of your PhD which I guess everyone is at some points like what if I don't do.

[00:48:15] But yeah I know I don't regret there since it has been fantastic and. You know trying to to get into the community I was able to to store meeting all these these people and lots of collaboration with NASA and now you know having my own lab.

[00:48:36] So so I guess that that sort of that path sort of explains a little bit you know I got my very engineering background pure background pretty much on on.

[00:48:49] And airplanes more than anything else and then in my second past university I guess I just did the other aspects and but still the love that I was in was a really great feat for me because it was still housed in an engineering department.

[00:49:10] So that helped me feel grounded and and feeling at home that makes sense as opposed to go to a medical school or something a little bit more on the biomedical side of things.

[00:49:26] So for me that was a great choice so for the audience I guess you know you have to find with the great feed for you is. And it can be in both sides of the air right more on the medical side MD or more on the engineering side.

[00:49:46] When you were working on the Ariana rocket launches was that happening in French, Guyana. So the European Space Sports is located in French Guyana so this is a French department that is located very close to the equator in South America so that makes it a great location.

[00:50:07] So I was traveling a lot there the first year to get trained and then I think pretty early they actually sent me there so I lived there for four years. So that was a really really great experience and you know lots of young engineers.

[00:50:28] You know very intense work it very operational working in very late or at night or early and when you have a launch clock you just need to go with it. But it's a really really fun time so I remember that time as a really good good.

[00:50:47] I'm not sure if I will do it again but this I mean I didn't have fun at other time right. And the Spaceport has actually been in the news again recently for the James Webb Space Telescope launch.

[00:51:03] Curious if you just know anyone involved with that project any of those people that you had spent those four years with were involved on this current launch and you know if they're very excited on that phenomenal success.

[00:51:17] Oh yeah absolutely lots of my colleagues are still working there and this was definitely a really really exciting mission I'm sure I'm not in close contact with them anymore so I haven't heard personally from them but I can see them on you know this TV.

[00:51:35] You can see videos and sad so I see some of my former colleagues being involved with that. So that's really exciting I can share that during my time there I launched 30, 35 rockets.

[00:51:51] Most of the time it was just telecommunication satellites but I was lucky to participate in the launchers of the first second or third ATV.

[00:52:03] I don't automatic transfer vehicles that were sent to the ISS so that was a different campaign and then my favorite campaign was the one that we launched two science satellites.

[00:52:17] These were air shell and plunk and that was a really hard campaign operationally because we only had a we didn't have a window, a long to window which just had a 80 like either you go or you're not going to have a long to go.

[00:52:32] You go or you have to report for multiple days actually because some of the satellites needed a helium three which is something really rare and you have to keep it really cold.

[00:52:47] And if you couldn't launch you just had to like open the rocket again and restart with a bunch of things so yeah that was a really motivating campaign that I was part of at the time.

[00:53:01] So I can imagine for the James Webb telescope I was actually a little jealous of not being part of that anymore because that was a really a huge one.

[00:53:12] Awesome well I think we want to finish up here with our last question which is do you have any advice for students or listeners who are interested in following a similar path to you.

[00:53:23] Yeah so one of the comments that I hear most from students is oh I know nothing about this therefore I cannot do it and I was like no no you totally can and especially I hear from engineering students reaching out to me.

[00:53:47] Hey I'm interested in your research but I don't know I don't know anything about this well if you're capable of going through engineering school you're going to be capable of going through any other thing. So I guess my advice would be just follow what you want to do.

[00:54:08] You're capable of doing anything you want if this is what you really want that are ways to get there and maybe you know I'm not saying.

[00:54:19] You're going to get everything you're apply for I guess it is more broad on that it's like maybe there is another way that is better for you or you will find a way to get what you want to get or on the way you will realize you wanted to get a different place.

[00:54:35] But don't be the one telling yourself you can't do it because in my case I always say well I didn't know anything about physiology when I started very few it's neither.

[00:54:49] And I struggle as everyone else and it was easy but this is what I wanted to do so. So yeah I guess that's something that I like to share and hopefully that can motivate people to reach out to to professors and look.

[00:55:08] You know try to look for what path works for opportunities. Opportunities yeah that's it. I think that was an incredibly put are there any opportunities programs that you know of that you'd be willing to share with audience members that are thinking of a similar path.

[00:55:29] Yeah absolutely so there are more and more places like like my lab now at a gym or the lab at MIT.

[00:55:40] There is that community that it's starting to grow a lot at least in the United States is what I know the most of them sure there are other places too.

[00:55:51] But in the United States there are you know other labs that is my lab that is the MIT opportunity.

[00:55:58] There is Colorado Boulder that also has a great program of biostronautics that is juicy Davies that also have some faculty there former astronaut Steve Robinson doing some some really nice work.

[00:56:13] You know every faculty member is focused on different aspects of it but you know with all these growth of commercial space flight I think there's going to be just more and more and more opportunities everywhere.

[00:56:25] So not only in industry to get internships a lot of my students are getting now interships in different places and companies not only NASA but private companies too. So yeah I think this field is definitely exploding and providing more and more opportunities for students for sure.

[00:56:49] Perfect for all of those for those of you that are interested. Dominochi will post links to Dr Diaz Artilus's lab as well as those of Boulder and UC Davis that she mentioned.

[00:57:03] And I think we also have a link to research on mice and centrifuges in the ISS that will put down there as well. Wonderful. I'm very interested in that one.

[00:57:15] Yes, are there any additional things you'd want us to link listeners to places or projects you want to promote? Well I try to keep the website relatively updated. It's always a you know the task that never ends.

[00:57:32] So I guess the website if you're interested in in the work that we do the website will be a great place to go. We also have a Twitter account pretty active lately.

[00:57:42] We have a great student collect shout out to her she's been great at posting posting the UCs are pretty funny too. So she's is very creative with her posts always professional. But fun. Fun. At the same time. So I think that's a great way to follow our work.

[00:58:04] We also try to link all the publications out there and news and such. So the worst that I guess will be a good place to go. I just want to take a minute to say thank you Dr Diaz Artilus for being on the podcast for sharing your story.

[00:58:23] It will be inspiring to many other people. And remember folks we just wanted to wish you all well and as always stay oxygenated everyone.