Research on humans during space flights: ethical problems.

Abstract

Experiments on humans during space flights call for ethical reflection, which is more than a mere assessment of the risks and a concurrent ethical evaluation of manned space flight as such. Although it may be desirable to harmonize ethical standards for international space flights especially against the background of the construction of an International Space Station (ISS) the application of ethical standards for human experiments on earth to the situation in space is not (at all) straight forward. The analysis shows that an ethical evaluation of experiments in space involving humans cannot be made solely on grounds of those principles which apply in comparable cases of terrestrial experiments. The very special conditions in space necessitate further ethical considerations. From this it may of course not be inferred that the current practice of strict ethical evaluation of experiments on humans becomes obsolete once we leave the planet earth. On the contrary, it means that widely accepted principles--like free and informed consent, or data protection and privacy--may need to be amended in order to take proper account of the special conditions in space and the need to achieve a consensus among the different persons involved.