Surgery in Space 2007: Where Are We Now? - August 11, 2008

On February 26, 2007, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced an undersea mission to include “first flight surgeon”. The mission named NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 12, NEEMO 12 for short, will include among many experiments, a hands-on telesurgery demonstrations and robotic telesurgery technology.1 The mission will take place in the ocean depths off the coast of Florida from May 7-18 this year.

 

The purpose of this phase of the mission is to help surgeons to overcome simulated interplanetary communication lag time issues related to robotic and telesurgery.2   This news release is very exciting since it demonstrates a shift in focus within the United States Space Program. Only in the last few years has the human factors issues of space flight begun to take center stage; brought on in part by the new push within NASA to return to the Moon and go on to Mars as directed by President Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration”. More...

 

Flight attendant gets a shot at final frontier - August 10, 2008

 

PARIS - A French flight attendant has won an opportunity to fly to the edge of space after rescuing a winning candy wrapper from the garbage.Mathilde Epron, 32, could take a trip into space aboard a Rocketplane XL craft as early as 2010, thanks to a space tourism competition sponsored by Nestle's KitKat line of chocolate bars. More...

 

Injured By a Spacecraft? There’s a Diagnostic Code for That - August 09, 2008

 

So we’ve got this patient here who was injured in this spaceship accident. You know, just a routine, uh, orbital mishap. But how do we account for that? Oh, right, it’s ICD-9 code E845 — “Accident involving spacecraft.” More...

 

NASA used cadavers in Orion landing tests - August 06, 2008

 

Personnel working under contract for NASA used cadavers in tests to develop landing systems, spacesuits and seats in the new Orion moonship, space agency officials said Friday.
Three human bodies were used in the tests at Ohio State University Medical Center last summer and fall. More...