News & Events: Space Tourism

UCSF News reports on research into the effects of space travel, known and unknown, to the physiology and bodies of astronauts traveling about the international space station (ISS). The research has profound implications for longer trips to distant planets, notably NASA's goal of flying a manned spacecraft to Mars. Research into the novel and myriad effects of space travel on humans will be critical to the success of this endeavor. Three faculty in the UCSF Department of Surgery and an esteemed collaborator in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, were among the researchers [...]

The Transplant and Stem Cell Immunobiology (TSI) Lab at UCSF has officially launched its new website. Its two principal investigators, Sonja Schrepfer, M.D., Ph.D., Lab Director and Associate Professor of Surgery, and Tobias Deuse, M.D., Associate Professor of Surgery and Director of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, both of the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery, conduct research to answer complex questions about stem cell therapy, heart and lung transplantation, and cardiovascular disease, with the goal of translating basic science discoveries into downstream medical [...]

Millie Hughes-Fulford, Ph.D.and Marlene Grenon, M.D., C.M., both of UCSF, and Apollo astronaut Russell Schweickart, will moderate a panel on interplanetary travel to Mars, the session entitled "Mars or Bust". The panel session will take place at the World Future 2015 conference which runs from July 24 - 26th in San Francisco. According to the hosts: WorldFuture is the annual conference of the World Future Society (WFS). For nearly fifty years, WFS conferences have brought together the smartest futurists and leaders in the world to explore the impact of current and future trends in society, [...]

Space Medicine in the 21st Century: A Panel on Commercial and Governmental Opportunities On Thursday, February 2, 2013, UCSF Vascular Surgeon Marlene Grenon, M.D., C.M., will moderate a session in which a panel of experts will discuss the lessons learned from the recent Red Bull Stratos Jump and how current and planned wireless devices can facilitate a new level of professional health care for sub-orbital and orbital spaceflight participants and NASA's exploration program to the International Space Station, the Moon, the moons of Mars, and Asteroids. Novel wireless devices continue to flood [...]

SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, reports on the health challenges of space tourism, highlighting a paper published by UCSF Vascular Surgeon Marlene Grenon, M.D., C.M. and colleagues in the British Medical Journal discussing the field of space medicine for non-experts and clinicians alike. The world may be on the brink of a vast new frontier of tourism - and that could raise a few odd, and at this point unanswerable, questions for doctors. Such as, "What is the maximum time my patient with osteoporosis can spend on a vacation at a space hotel?" That is exactly a [...]