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Toxicology Office

The Toxicology Office at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) serves as the NASA-wide resource for all aspects of Space Toxicology. The mission of the Toxicology Office is to protect spacecraft crews from toxic exposures. This is accomplished by:

• Assessing and documenting the health hazards of specific potential contaminants of spacecraft air or water before each flight. The assessments are documented in:
• HMSTs - (Hazardous Materials Summary Tables)
• HazMats - (Hazardous Materials data files)
• SMACs - (Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentrations)
• SWEGs - (Spacecraft Water Exposure Guidelines)
• Measuring airborne contaminants in the atmospheres of manned spacecraft: This is done by
• Offgas testing - Pre-flight testing of flight hardware for the levels of volatile materials released
• Monitoring - In-flight quantitation of atmospheric pollutants, either real-time or near-real-time, and by
• Post-flight analysis - of archived samples of spacecraft atmospheric pollutants.
• Assessing the toxicological risk to crew of potential contaminants of air or water in Lunar, Martian, or other extraterrestrial habitats.
• LADTAG (Lunar Airborne Dust Toxicity Advisory Group)
• Establishing requirements for development of advanced technologies for use in monitoring pollutants in spacecraft atmospheres.
• Sensors

Contacts:
NASA Manager: John James, Ph.D.
Contractor Manager: Tom Limero, Ph.D.