Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool

Sleep loss and fatigue may lead to reduced performance and an increased risk to safety during many activities, including spaceflight. Your challenge is to develop an operational sleep shift scheduling tool that provides autonomous customization of a schedule for sleep, exercise, and nutrition to manage fatigue.

Space Surviving

Summary

This project consists of a series of simple solutions taken from normal daily life, to improve the sleep quality and well-being of the astronauts when travelling on space. The solutions range from sleep quality, workout, to suitable nutritional food on space, combining conventional methods with technology.

How We Addressed This Challenge

This set of simple yet effective solutions can solve the problems faced by astronauts easily, without the need to implement huge changes. In space, astronauts may not be able to get a good sleep due to several reasons as mentioned below.

Our solution is aim provide astronaut a healthy lifestyle by solving their sleep dilemma. The solutions are taken from normal daily life. Being a astronaut is not easy and it is risky. We hope to achieve a goal where anyone who dreams to become an astronaut do not have to worry about their well-being on space.







Our solutions:

1.Create own timezone. By turning on and off the light of the sleeping space, a timezone can be created for an astronaut. Turning on warm yellow light indicates "day" while turning off the light indicates "night". To perform this, please ensure the sleeping space of astronaut is an enclosed room so that the sharp light outside will not affect the astronaut's sleep.This creates a healthy daily regimen for astronauts based on the timezone. The wall of the sleeping space should be embedded with soft materials that absorb sound because the loud sound of machine operating will disturb sleep. The sleeping space should be large enough for the astronauts to turn over their body when they sleep.


2.Sleeping shift schedule. All the astronauts should sleep according to the shift. For example, 50% of the astronauts work on day shift while the other 50% work on night shift to support mission console.


3.Use tracking watch and apps. To ensure all the astronauts get 8 hours of quality sleep, an app that can track sleeping behavior is vital. The tracking watch will vibrate to wake them up. Sometimes, astronauts will have light sleep before they move into deep sleep or tend make a dream in their sleep before they awake. Thus, an app is required to track the sleeping behavior of astronauts. Every astronaut should wear a tracking watch so that they only wake up after 8 hours of deep sleep to ensure they have enough rest.


4.Develop perishable food. To make sure all the astronauts get sufficient nutrient, the space food(vacuum packed food, dried food and packed liquid food) should includes all types of nutrients such as protein, carbohydrates, minerals, fats and minerals. Every astronauts have different health condition. Thus, AI app should be used to design the nutrient plan(breakfast, dinner, lunch) for each astronaut according to their health and need.


5.Develop workout tool. Exercising is very vital for astronauts. Without exercising, the astronauts' bones would be more fragile and their muscles weaker after spending some time in space due to microgravity. They could also experience a major loss in bone mass, bone density and their cardiovascular health would be affected. Thus, resistance band and TRX band anchored to the spaceship wall should be available for astronauts to do their workout efficiently. A customized plan should be generated using AI software or technology according to the health of every astronaut. It is due to the reason that every astronaut has different body conditions.

How We Developed This Project

Being an astronaut is an important job and that requires lots of attention and energy to deal with vital tasks daily. Hence, sleep quality and health of the astronauts plays a huge role. After doing some research on astronaut's daily life, we found that it is quite challenging for an astronaut to get a quality sleep.By applying our general as well as specific knowledge , hopefully the problem can be solved in an easy way, which can be applied easily.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

I used the data obtained from NASA websites (https://2020.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/sustain/sleep-shift-scheduling-tool/resources, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasa-research-reveals-biological-clock-misalignment-effects-on-sleep-for-astronauts, https://www.nasa.gov/content/study-compiles-data-on-problem-of-sleep-deprivation-in-astronauts/) to detect and fully understand the problems faced by the astronauts and this helps me to develop the solutions to solve them.


Besides, I also took a look at CSA website https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/living-in-space/physical-activity-in-space.asp to understand how astronauts do their physical activities in the space.

Tags
#sleepquality #spacesurviving #nasaspaceappschallenge2020 #JOXYteam #sleepshiftingscheduletools
Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Judging process.