ALBERT

Description: Astronaut missions to Mars may be decades in the future, but contemporary estimates of the physical capabilities of the crewmembers upon arrival after prolonged transit can guide development of operational requirements to be imposed on them. Requirements for functional capacities will differ depending on whether they land in a spartan ascent vehicle or in a well-equipped habitat, but each of those options brings with it certain operational risks. Rehabilitation will be an important factor for crew health, safety and efficiency after the multi-month transit from Earth. Specific recommendations will be stipulated for the time to be allotted for on-planet rehabilitation before the first planned surface excursion, such as the transfer from the ascent-lander to the habitat-lander. Three sequential workshops (the third including extramural experts in appropriate fields) examined the likely capabilities of crewmembers shortly after landing on Mars, the predicted operational requirements they will face, and the near-term steps to close the gap between the requirements and capabilities.

Description: The Interim Resistance Exercise Device (iRED), developed for the International Space Station (ISS), was evaluated using human subjects for a Man-In-The-Loop Test (MILT). Thirty-two human subjects exercised using the iRED in a test that was conducted over a 63-working-day period. The subjects performed the same exercises will be used on board ISS, and the iRED operating constraints that are to be used on ISS were followed. In addition, eight of the subjects were astronauts who volunteered to be in the evaluation in order to become familiar with the iRED and provide a critique of the device. The MILT was scheduled to last for 57,000 exercise repetitions on the iRED. This number of repetitions was agreed to as a number typical of that expected during a 3-person, 17-week ISS Increment. One of the canisters of the iRED failed at the 49,683- repetition mark (87.1% of targeted goal). The remaining canister was operated using the plan for operations if one canister fails during flight (contingency operations). This canister remained functional past the 57,000-repetition mark. This report details the results of the iRED MILT, and lists specific recommendations regarding both operation of the iRED and future resistance exercise device development.

Description: Each exercise device on the International Space Station (ISS) has a unique, customized software system interface with unique layouts / hierarchy, and operational principles that require significant crew training. Furthermore, the software programs are not adaptable and provide no real-time feedback or motivation to enhance the exercise experience and/or prevent injuries. Additionally, the graphical user interfaces (GUI) of these systems present information through multiple layers resulting in difficulty navigating to the desired screens and functions. These limitations of current exercise device GUI's lead to increased crew time spent on initiating, loading, performing exercises, logging data and exiting the system. To address these limitations a Next Generation One Portal (NextGen One Portal) Crew Countermeasure System (CMS) was developed, which utilizes the latest industry guidelines in GUI designs to provide an intuitive ease of use approach (i.e., 80% of the functionality gained within 5-10 minutes of initial use without/limited formal training required). This is accomplished by providing a consistent interface using common software to reduce crew training, increase efficiency & user satisfaction while also reducing development & maintenance costs. Results from the usability evaluations showed the NextGen One Portal UI having greater efficiency, learnability, memorability, usability and overall user experience than the current Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) UI used by astronauts on ISS. Specifically, the design of the One-Portal UI as an app interface similar to those found on the Apple and Google's App Store, assisted many of the participants in grasping the concepts of the interface with minimum training. Although the NextGen One-Portal UI was shown to be an overall better interface, observations by the test facilitators noted specific exercise tasks appeared to have a significant impact on the NextGen One-Portal UI efficiency. Future updates to the NextGen One Portal UI will address these inefficiencies.

Description: The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a virtual exercise training software system (VETSS) capable of providing real-time instruction and exercise feedback during exploration missions. A resistive exercise instructional system was developed using a Microsoft Kinect depth-camera device, which provides markerless 3-D whole-body motion capture at a small form factor and minimal setup effort. It was hypothesized that subjects using the newly developed instructional software tool would perform the deadlift exercise with more optimal kinematics and consistent technique than those without the instructional software. Following a comprehensive evaluation in the laboratory, the system was deployed for testing and refinement in the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) analog.