Searching thoroughly for the methods presently used to fight the sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption and locating their strengths and weaknesses, scouring for new, practical techniques, and thinking of the best, suitable, most straightforward way to incorporate these methods in one place, we were able to find a novel solution that integrates and manages them in one place without interrupting the astronauts during his work. This solution is a smartwatch, in which it includes many features (e.g., measuring the calories burnt and heartbeats, Personalized sleep-eat-medication schedule, and Relaxing music player).
It is highly crucial for astronauts to have a healthy sleep. As human spaceflight often requires astronaut crews to endure long periods without rest, the lack of sleep can cause fatigue that leads to errors while performing critical tasks. Additionally, individuals who are fatigued often cannot determine the degree of their impairment. Fatigue due to work overload, sleep shifting and sleep loss could cause performance, on-the-job errors that put space flight participants at risk of compromising mission objectives as well as the health and safety of those on board. As a result, a practical solution is a must-to-do, controversial task.
The main goal of our solution is to find the best, most-suitable routine to every astronaut and helps him stick to it. This routine will help him get enough sleep hours, suitable nutrition, required exercises, and medication schedules.
Our solution is a smartwatch that incorporates a lot of essential features. We made sure that these features will adjust the astronaut the most effective routine to have a healthy sleep. These features are as follow:
- Measuring the Heartbeats:
When we know the heartbeat rates, we realize how the body behaves while an astronaut is sleeping or how his heart affected by the hours he slept and if they are enough or not. That will help us to eliminate Heart palpitations, risk of cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease.
- The number of hours the astronaut needs to sleep to have a healthy nap:
This will help to estimate the sleep-promoting medications and, consequently, the sleep for accurate, enough hours.
- Measuring the Calories Burnt:
It helps to evaluate how much exercises the astronaut needs and alert him if he didn’t spend any physical effort for a certain number of minutes.
- Relaxing music player:
Music has a direct effect on the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps your body relax and prepare for sleep. That music will help them fall asleep faster, longer, and wake up less during the night.
- Personalized sleep-eat-medication schedule:
The watch will combine the inputs and then suggest few plans, from which the astronaut can choose the most suitable one. The watch will also make sure that the astronaut is sticking to the program by notifying him with what he is supposed to be doing at a definite moment.
As I mentioned before, we were inspired by the challenge once we put ourselves in the astronauts’ shoes. Once we did that, we could feel how much effort these people do for us. As a result, we have to do something for them. Astronauts put their lives at stake for us, so the least thing we can do for them is to help them have a healthy sleep.
In my opinion, the best way to develop a particular project is to link yourself emotionally with the challenge behind the project. Our team did that. We felt like we have to do something for the sleeping-struggled astronauts in the space. These people are obliged to live far away from their homes, family, and friends to discover and observe something that later will shape our future. Despite leaving their whole life behind them for a better future, they cannot do one of their least rights—sleeping. That is the main reason behind the approach we used to develop the project. It is to connect ourselves emotionally to the astronauts and to feel like we are gravitated to help them.
In the matter of fact, we were lost until we read NASA’s articles. They are straightforward and pretty easy to interpret. It helped us to imagine how the astronauts live up there in the space with offering a vivid imagination of them. In addition to helping us interpreting the factors the affect the sleep deprivation of the astronauts, they also offered a lot of already-used solutions, so we could imagine how our solution could be. Offering a lot of prior solutions helped us to locate their points of strengths and weaknesses. As a result, we incorporated a lot of these of strengths and avoid all of the weaknesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YMGrVxyF6w&feature=youtu.be
NASA Research Reveals Biological Clock Effects on Sleep for Astronauts. (2020). Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasa-research-reveals-biological-clock-misalignment-effects-on-sleep-for-astronauts
Seven Ways Astronauts Improve Sleep May Help You Snooze Better. (2020). Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/astronauts_improve_sleep
https://www.youtube.com/c/NASA/videos