PRESENTED BY
MONALISHA SAHOO

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MODERN TECHNOLOGY FOR ASTRONAUTS
Introduction
The International Space Station is an unprecedented achievement in global human endeavors to conceive, plan, build, operate, and utilize a research platform in space.
During the space station assembly phase, the potential benefits of space-based research and development were demonstrated.
National Aeronautics and Space Act that NASA was created in 1958.
ASTRONAUTS
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft.
Until 2003, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military, or by civilian space agencies.
With the sub-orbital flight of the privately-funded Spaceship One in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.
TECHNOLOGY FOR ASTRONAUTS
Hubble to Receive High-Tech James Webb Space Telescope Technology.
NASA Tests Engine Technology for Landing Astronauts on the Moon.
Digital Communications & Navigation.
New Integrated Audio System for Astronauts.
Power & In-Space Propulsion
Hubble to Receive High-Tech James Webb Space Telescope Technology
Scientists and engineers now creating new technologies for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have realized they can be used to enhance the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the upcoming servicing mission. One piece of new technology astronauts will be installing in Hubble during Servicing Mission 4 in May, 2009 is a small, specialized integrated circuit called an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, or ASIC, that enables an entire circuit board’s worth of electronics to be condensed into a very small package.
NASA Tests Engine Technology for Landing Astronauts on the Moon.
Digital Communications Navigation
The Digital Communications & Navigation Branch of NASA Glenn Research Center has the following responsibilities:
Conducts research and technology development related to digital communications and navigation systems.
Performs research in hardware and software development, analyses, and simulations to identify and create subsystem-level products.
The specific technologies include software-defined radios (SDR); low power, small form factor radios for extravehicular activity (EVA) missions; integrated audio concepts for spacesuits; signal processing; and reconfigurable microelectronic devices.
New Integrated Audio System for Astronauts
Power & In-Space Propulsion
Power system technologies include photovoltaic, space environmental effects, fuel cells, batteries, solar thermal propulsion, thermal energy conversion, flywheels etc.
The electric propulsion technologies include ion engines, pulsed plasma thrusters, Hall thrusters, magneto-plasma dynamic thrusters and plasma contactors.
Technology development is accomplished both in-house and through contracts and space act agreements with industrial partners.
Apollo program
The Apollo program was the United States spaceflight effort which landed the first humans on Earth's Moon.
Apollo began in earnest after President John F. Kennedy's 1961 address to Congress.
The Apollo program ran from 1961 until 1975, and was America's third orbital human spaceflight program.
The program was successfully carried out despite two major setbacks.
NASA's Space Life Sciences Division
The role of NASA's Space Life Sciences Division, formerly Life and Biomedical Sciences and Applications.
One area of research is the loss of muscle and bone mass in astronauts during space flight, called disuse atrophy.
The knowledge and technologies gained through their research to help astronauts in long space flights could help those on Earth suffering from osteoporosis and related bone diseases.
Osteoporosis
According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 28 million Americans suffer from osteoporosis - 80% of them are women.
Of the women who suffer an osteoporotic hip fracture, one in five will die within the first year following the fracture.
Men and women both lose bone mass due to aging, starting around age 30.
Bare Bone Facts
the breakdown of old bone mass and the formation of new bone mass occur constantly, in a balanced cycle called remodeling.
Bone cells called osteoblasts make new bone, and cells called osteoclasts break down old bone mass.
The remodeling process becomes unbalanced and the result is a localized loss of bone mass.
Conclusion
As NASA continues its missions into space, the Agency will no doubt create new, innovative technologies to carry its astronauts and protect these explorers along the way. It is unknown what new advances will be discovered along the way, as NASA begins longer duration space flights to the Moon and on to Mars, and as astronauts continue to live and work in the orbiting space station.