Clarence Jernigan, MD2011-12-202008-06-172011-12-202008-04-022008-03-13etd-04022008-133022http://hdl.handle.net/2152.3/88Non-career space travelers from around the world will be venturing into space as commercial programs develop and mature. There are multiple forces promoting human suborbital and orbital flight, including; public interest and desire, market and financial drivers, technological advances, and a paradigm shift from governmental to privately funded space enterprises. This Capstone project seeks to evaluate factors of health and safety related to the space traveling general public. These elements involve: (1) pre-mission medical standards and evaluation, (2) medical risk mitigation, (3) physiological impacts of acceleration, microgravity, and radiation exposure, (4) in-flight medical monitoring and health care delivery, (5) pre-flight training, and (6) regulatory issues. Space tourism has indeed started, and the coming decades will see this dream of flight come true for a sizeable number of participants.electronicengCopyright © is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the TDL web site by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.suborbital flightspace tourismspace passengersmedical standardscommerical space flighttext