This teaching text is designed primarily to support coursework at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. The two-volume set also provides a reference text for those desiring a broad overview of the space environment, response of living systems to spaceflight, psychosocial issues of spaceflight and life support systems. In section 2 each chapter is organised to provide both a functional introduction to the physiologic system under consideration and a discussion of how spaceflight affects that system. Unlike previous treatments of the space life sciences, this text has relied primarily on the academic community engaged in space-related research for its material.