Home Your browser does not support the video tag. The Safety in Aerospace and Flight Environments (SAFE) Lab is dedicated to advancing the health, performance, safety, and efficiency of aviators and astronauts operating in complex, high-risk environments. The lab utilizes experimental studies, immersive simulations, and advanced data analytics to characterize and improve human-system integration. By investigating how humans interact with aerospace technologies and environments, the SAFE Lab informs the design of safer cockpits, control interfaces, and operational procedures. Ultimately, the lab’s mission is to optimize human performance, reduce health and safety risks, and enhance situational awareness for those working at the frontiers of flight and space exploration. Research VIEW ALL RESEARCH » Spacecraft Occupant Protection Spacecraft occupant protection is an interdisciplinary field that integrates aerospace engineering, biomechanics, and space medicine. Our lab seeks to characterize and mitigate injury risks to crew members during dynamic events such as spacecraft landings. We combine computational modeling and simulation of human body responses with empirical data to predict injury outcomes under various spacecraft loading conditions. By advancing our understanding of injury biomechanics, our research informs the development of evidence-based injury criteria and design standards to enhance crew survivability and mission safety. Development of a Ground-Based Analog for In-Flight Vestibular Disruption Upon entry into a microgravity environment, astronauts experience altered inputs to the vestibular system, leading to motion sickness and sensorimotor challenges. Current ground-based analogs such as parabolic flight are limited by high costs and short exposure periods (inadequate for studying adaptation to microgravity). The goal of this project is to develop a new ground-based analog for modeling these in-flight vestibular disturbances for both research and training applications. Altered Gravity Ambulation Future manned missions to the moon and Mars will require significant surface EVAs. Altered gravity and vestibular deconditioning are likely to have major impacts on gait and ambulation, but very little data is available as the only human extraterrestrial surface EVAs occurred during the Apollo lunar EVAs over 50 years ago. It is imperative to accurately characterize the impacts of these combined stressors on performance, gait, workload, cardiovascular load, and metabolic load in order to safely plan and conduct EVAs on extraplanetary surfaces. News Welcome Mark Finley to the Safety in Aerospace and Flight Environments (SAFE) Laboratory! August 25th, 2025 Congratulations to John Hayes on his NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Fellowship! June 1st, 2025 Congratulations to Srihari Menon for successfully defending and completing his Doctoral Degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering! May 10th, 2025 Welcome Nickey Diorio to the Safety in Aerospace and Flight Environments (SAFE) Laboratory! March 1st, 2025 Texas A&M Breaks Ground at NASA Johnson Space Center for Space Institute! November 22nd, 2024 Congratulations to John Hayes for receiving the Best Student Paper Award from the Aerospace Systems technical group! October 11th, 2024 Relevant Links Texas A&M Space Institute FAA Aviation Accident Dashboard Global Human Body Models Consortium NASA Human Space Research Roadmap National Academies Board on Human Systems Integration SAFE Reliability Engineering Regents Approve Texas A&M Space Institute Texas A&M builds first-ever life-size simulation of the moon and Mars' surface Texas Space Comission Spacecraft Occupant Protection
