Orbiting the Earth at almost 5 miles per second, a structure exists that is nearly the size of a football field and weighs almost a million pounds. The International Space Station (ISS) is a testament to international cooperation and significant achievements in engineering. The ISS is critically important to NASA’s future exploration missions. Within the NASA Human Research Program (HRP), the International Space Station Medical Projects (ISSMP) element provides flight implementation services to HRP-sponsored research involving human research subjectsallowing investigators to address the human risks of spaceflight enabling the safe exploration of space. For non-HRP-sponsored studies, the ISSMPsupports the overall coordination of the flight studies into efficient science complements for each crew member and the scheduling of data collectionsessions.The ISS is a truly unique research platform. The possibilities of what can be discovered by conducting research on the ISS are endless and have the potential to contribute to the greater good of life on Earth and inspire generations of researchers to come. As we increase utilization of ISS, now is the time for investigators to propose new research and to make discoveries unveiling novel responses that could not be defined using traditional approaches on Earth.
