Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania will present a lecture about the challenges of human travel to Mars by Jim Pawelczyk, Ph.D. titled What Price a Martian? Human Limits to Exploring the Red Planet on Wednesday, February 19, at 6 p.m. in McCormick Center, room 2303. The special lecture is free and open to the public.

Pawelczyk, associate professor of physiology, kinesiology, and medicine at Penn State University and a former NASA astronaut, will explain current plans for human planetary exploration and highlight knowledge gaps and opportunities for human biologists to help reach the most audacious destination that humankind has ever contemplated, a trip to Mars.

A human trip to Martian orbit is expected to be possible in the late 2020s, followed by landing operations between 2030 and 2040. The 30-month mission would expose humans to reduced loading; heavy, high-energy, ionizing radiation; confinement; and environmental conditions far outside the Earths.

Pawelczyks current research focuses on blood pressure regulation and how disuse atrophy affects regulation. Problems with moment-to-moment regulation of blood pressure lead to orthostatic intolerance, an inability to maintain adequate blood flow to the brain that affects as many as 500,000 Americans. The condition is routinely observed following spaceflight, which Pawelczyk has studied as a NASA-funded investigator for the past six years.

In 1995, he was selected as a payload specialist for the Neurolab space shuttle mission and flew aboard STS-90 on the space shuttle Columbia in April and May of 1998. He logged 16 days and 6.4 million miles in space, circling the earth 256 times and conducting neuroscience.

Pawelczyk earned bachelors degrees in biology and psychology from the University of Rochester in 1982, a masters degree in physiology from Penn State University in 1985, and a doctoral degree in biology from the University of North Texas in 1989. In 1995, he joined the faculty at Penn State.

Pawelczyk assists the formation of U.S. space life sciences strategy. He has testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space and is an active member of the NASA Advisory Councils Research Subcommittee for Human Exploration, the National Research Councils Committee on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, and the Institute of Medicines Committee on Aerospace Medicine and Extreme Environments.

Planning for the event is being done by the Department of Exercise Science and the lecture is sponsored by the Dean of the College of Science and Technology.

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Vacation on Mars? NASA astronaut talks space travel at Bloomsburg University - NorthcentralPa.com