NASA Rethinks Drug Packaging for Trip to Mars.

As the International Space Station missions extend and future journeys to Mars loom, the challenge of maintaining drug stability for more than two years in space has become a critical focus for ensuring astronaut health and mission success.

Scientists are on a mission to create a process using high-quality sealed packaging that doesn’t take up much room and uses less plastic. NASA researchers are working on a number of potential problems, an example, how stable are medications to ionizing radiation. Galactic cosmic radiation includes highly energetic charged particles and neutrons.

While all the lessons learned for repackaging drugs on long ISS missions will likely not translate to repackaging drugs here on earth, it is possible that what NASA discovers about using less plastic, packaging efficiency in space, mass, and volume could impact the environment and shipping practices. Source: packagingdigest.com

美國宇航局重新考慮火星之旅的藥品包裝。隨著國際太空站任務的延長和未來火星之旅的臨近，在太空中維持兩年以上藥物穩定性的挑戰已成為確保太空人健康和任務成功的關鍵焦點。

科學家正致力於開發一種使用高品質密封包裝的工藝，這種包裝不佔用太多空間，而且使用更少的塑膠。美國太空總署的研究人員正在研究許多潛在問題，例如藥物對電離輻射的穩定性如何。銀河宇宙輻射包括高能帶電粒子和中子。

雖然在國際太空站長期任務中重新包裝藥物所獲得的所有經驗可能不會轉化為地球上的重新包裝藥物，但美國宇航局在減少塑料使用、提高太空包裝效率、質量和體積方面的發現可能會對環境和運輸實踐產生影響。