Portable THz Spectroscopic Device for Biomedical Diagnostics in the Space Environment

As NASA moves forward with its plans for human long-term space flights to asteroids, outer planets, and other deep space destinations, the development of reliable, portable biomedical diagnostic systems becomes of paramount importance. In long duration flights, reliable biomedical diagnostics approaches should focus not only on maintaining the well being and good health of astronauts but also in enabling early detection of abnormal health conditions in astronauts. In this context, the proposers have previously demonstrated wireless radio frequency telemetry systems and BioMEMS sensors for astronauts health monitoring [1, 2]. Nevertheless, to identify countermeasures, treatments and/or suppression of conditions that can adversely affect astronauts’ health, it is desirable to develop diagnostic tools that can probe the pertinent intramolecular behavior in humans