Behind the four astronauts of Artemis II are hundreds of people tracking their every move: monitoring spacecraft systems, evaluating crew sa

NASA intends to solve the health effects of lunar dust through engineering by minimizing exposure of the humans to it, but it is likely that exposure will not be completely eliminated. As NASA astronauts venture beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) to explore the moon again on Artemis 2, human health is becoming central to how we design and sustain long-term lunar missions.

Outside LEO, the spaceflight environment changes in ways that significantly impact human physiology. Earth's magnetic field no longer provides the same shielding from cosmic radiation. Communication delays grow with distance, and even short missions beyond this protective envelope expose crews to hazards that are less familiar and harder to study in real-time.

Future crewed missions to the lunar surface will mark the first return since Apollo, bringing with them a different set of health considerations than those faced in orbit alone. Beyond the hazards of operating outside Earth's magnetosphere, surface missions introduce risks tied to longer exposure and repeated activity in the lunar environment.