AERO MEDICINE.

Abstract

The rapid progress in rocketry and the possibility of flight into far distant space have brought forth many new problems of a medical nature and opened up a still wider field for research. The challenge thus imposed has already been accepted, as was shown in March at the 29th annual meeting of the Aero Medical Association. On the three-day program were reports of studies on human behavior in flight, protection at extreme altitude, aviation physiology, aviation psychology, accidents and flight safety, hypothermic stress, sensory problems, acceleration, deceleration, and space medicine. Leading space investigators believe that the medical challenge of space flights can be met and that the difficulties involved in flights to the moon and some of the nearer planets will eventually be overcome. The problems associated with sustaining life in a space-like environment include consideration of protection from the effects of cosmic radiation, unfiltered solar ultraviolet and x-ray radiation,