Launch Point

By Aleena Shinde

We often imagine spacewalks, zero gravity flips, or breathtaking views of Earth but there’s a less glamorous reality. These missions can be really hard on the human body.

In space, astronauts face radiation, muscle loss, fluid shifts, and even changes in their DNA. These aren’t just temporary side effects as some of them can have long-term health impacts. As we prepare for longer missions to the Moon and Mars, space medicine is becoming one of the most urgent fields in aerospace research. And artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a critical role in helping scientists understand and solve these challenges.

I got a closer look at this intersection through my involvement with NASA’s GeneLab, a research platform that studies how spaceflight affects living systems at the molecular level. GeneLab collects and shares data from experiments flown on the International Space Station (ISS), including how genes are expressed differently in space. It uses powerful tools like bioinformatics and machine learning to find patterns in the data that would take humans months or years to analyze on their own.

For example, in one project I studied, scientists used RNA sequencing to examine how space travel altered gene expression in mouse tissues. These changes can hint at increased risk for diseases like cancer or immune dysfunction. With AI, researchers can process these massive data sets to detect subtle trends, compare them across missions, and even predict how certain countermeasures, like exercise or specific diets that might help.

AI also helps build personalized health strategies for astronauts. By analyzing genetic and physiological data, machine learning models can recommend targeted treatments or predict how someone’s body might react to spaceflight. This could be crucial on future missions, where Earth-based medical support will be hours or even days away.

But the benefits of this research go beyond astronauts. The same tools used to protect health in space are also being adapted for people on Earth, especially those in extreme or remote environments. In a way, space medicine is helping us prepare for both the far future and improve healthcare today.

What fascinates me most is how this research blends biology, engineering, data science, and even philosophy. We’re not just asking “What happens to the human body in space?”, we’re asking, “What does it mean to be human when we leave Earth?”

The more I learn through NASA GeneLab and other space biology programs, the more inspired I feel to pursue a career in engineering and maybe biomedical research. I don’t know exactly where that path will lead me yet, but I do know that machine learning and space exploration will be part of it.

*I am so grateful for my opportunity with the NASA Genelab (GL4HS) Summer Program as a pivotal stepping stone on my journey. The skills I have learned will serve me well as I continue to explore my future aspirations.