Healthcare through human spaceflight research
ESA astronaut Tim Peake took part in a conference yesterday hosted by the UK Space Gateway Harwell Campus, highlighting its unique capabilities in collaborative research and its expanding role in accelerating innovation in healthcare.
Human spaceflight research for healthcare is of global significance, addressing issues like environmental exposure and human diseases, ageing and drug discovery. Tim has a personal interest in life sciences and undertook numerous experiments during his time on the International Space Station. These have informed many research projects, helping to provide solutions including applications that will aid the detection, prevention and management of different threats to human health.
Tim said: “Keeping humans healthy in space is an extraordinary achievement. This is only possible through collaboration across different disciplines – a winning approach that also works to keep humans healthy on Earth.”
![Healthcare tech](/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2016/09/healthcare_tech/16146045-1-eng-GB/Healthcare_tech_article.jpg)
Harwell Campus boasts a host of multidisciplinary capabilities, including space exploration and its importance to terrestrial healthcare. Already widely recognised as vital to the UK’s ‘Knowledge Spine’, Harwell is at the forefront of life sciences R&D and healthcare applications.
The UK’s Human Spaceflight Capitalisation Office at Harwell was also launched at the conference. The office will help to harness the endeavours of all UK space activities and assets related to human spaceflight, with the aim of contributing to meeting the Government’s ambition to expand the UK’s share of the space market to £40 billion by 2030 and create more than 100 000 new jobs.