‘Space prophet’ knows that interplanetary travel will depend on longevity medicine
/Gary Hudson, who has spent a lifetime making space flight real, says longevity research will be critical to successful long-term space missions.
Called a “space prophet” by Inc. magazine, Hudson recently told the ELONgevity Podcast several longevity medicines being developed today can be useful to astronauts involved in deep-space missions.
“There are some anti-aging therapies, for example, killing senescent cells which … can be generated by a number of different processes. One of them is radiation,” he said. “That could have some very near-term applications to deep-space missions to Mars … where crew members would accumulate radiation damage that could be quite serious over the course of the mission. They could be treated during the mission and after return to earth with senescent cell therapies.”
Hudson knows a lot about space and senescent therapies.
A serial entrepreneur, he founded the Rotary Rocket Company, which flew three successful test flights in 1999. The company was one of the first organizations to recognize that space offered opportunities for non-governmental research and development. He then helped found the aerospace design and development company AirLaunch LLC in 2003 and aerospace company Transformational Space in 2004. He is currently the president and CEO of the Space Studies Institute.
He Hudson is also a founding partner of Oisín Biotechnologies, which is developing a treatment to remove senescent, or damaged, cells by using suicide gene therapy. He also provided seed funding to create the SENS Research Foundation, a non-profit that promotes regenerative medicine.
All this means that Hudson is in the unique position to fully appreciate how longevity medicine is critical to space travel, and especially deep-space missions.
The work on senescent cells taking place today will help to protect interplanetary mission crew members who won’t be able to swing by a well-staffed hospital to get their diseases treated or for life-saving surgery.
But we believe other aspects of longevity medicine will also be critical, both to space travelers and everyone who will remain earthbound.
That is why Methuselah Foundation has gotten involved in two major NASA Challenges:
· The NASA-Methuselah Foundation Vascular Tissue Challenge, which recently honored two teams that bioprinted human liver tissues in the lab, is focused on bioprinting replacement human tissue. The work being done here promises to help overcome the organ shortage that impede transplantation. It could also make replacement organs available for deep-space travelers.
· The NASA-Methuselah Foundation Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition to reward teams that design, build and demonstrate prototypes of food production technologies that deliver tangible nutritional products. The goal is to find innovative ways to produce an abundance of nutritional food – for space and earthbound regions where people suffer from chronic hunger.
Since we began sending people into space in 1961, space exploration efforts have contributed to scientific advances that benefit us every day – from camera phones to baby formula, solar cells to LASIK surgery.
We’re excited that the synergy between space travel and science now involves the longevity research we are committed to supporting. And we’re eager to benefit from the collaboration.