Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury.

Medicine is both an area of knowledge (a science), and the application of that knowledge (by the medical profession and other health professionals such as nurses). In that context, space plays a significant role in 5 main areas:

Medical research

Fundamental research, towards a better understanding of the human organism and its survival and wellbeing under the harsh conditions of space flight, contributes to the improvement of human health in space as well as on the ground.
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Diagnosis and treatment

Astronauts isolated in orbit around the Earth, or on the Moon or Mars need effective and timely monitoring of their health and tele-diagnosis, as is also very useful in remote, isolated, or some emergency situations on Earth.
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Emergency and disaster medicine

Minitiarized sensors and diagnostics equipment with data transfer capabilities are some of the common devices required both for human spaceflight as well as for medical operations during terrestrial emergencies and disasters.
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Tele-education is a tool useful for helping both space explorers as well as health workers in remote areas deal with medical tasks for which they are not and cannot be adequately trained.
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Human spaceflight requires the development and use of myriad portable and minitiarized measurement devices and sensors both for basic research purposes as well as for monitoring the health of the crew. Many of these devices find their use in diverse terrestrial medical situations on the ground, be they in homecare, emergencies, battlefields, or transport, to mention but a few scenarios.
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