No matter how well the astronauts who travel to space are in health, once there they can get sick or have accidents requiring surgical intervention. If there is enough time, they could be sent back to Earth, but what if it is an emergency? You could try to always have a doctor on the team. But what happens if it is the doctor who requires an intervention? All this is something that worries the future special colonizations, as well as the current missions on the international space station (ISS). That’s why, a new robotable to make a surgery in space, It has proven to be an essential milestone for everything that is to come.
This has not been tested only on Earth. He has also already performed his first surgery in space, specifically on the ISS. The robot puts its hands and a team of surgeons on Earth with the knowledge. As for the patient, at the moment no intervention has been carried out on astronauts. The experiment has been carried out with a series of elastics that simulate human tissuebut the good thing is that it has been a success.
Therefore, if that were the case, although it would not hurt to continue experimenting with false patients, this robot could get to work.
This was the first surgery in space
The person in charge of performing this surgery in space has been spaceMIRAa microwave-sized robot that was transported to the ISS last January aboard a company rocket SpaceX.
Said robot has articulated arms capable of handling tools or cutting tissue as necessary. But does not make decisions. All of this is done by surgeons on Earth. These operate a robotic arm connected to spaceMIRA itself, so that their movements are transferred to space.
The robot has been manufactured by the company Virtual Incision, whose surgeons have been the ones who have carried out the surgery in space. In total, six surgeons took part, taking turns, with excellent results. They only found one handicap, and that is that there is a small delay with communications between the robot on the ISS and Earth. This delay is 0.85 seconds. It may seem like very little, but for important surgery every fraction of a second counts. Even so, they knew how to work with that delay without any problem.
It would also have applications on Earth
In 1961, the Russian doctor Leonid Rogozov, was working at a scientific station in Antarctica when he began to feel unwell. He didn’t need anyone to diagnose what was happening to him: appendicitis.
He needed emergency surgery and if they transferred him to the nearest hospital, with the means available at that time, it might already be too late. As a solution, he proceeded to perform surgery himself.
It was a feat that went down in history, but also reckless. Therefore, a robot like spaceMIRA could have applications beyond surgery in space. It could lead to remote places like Antarctica. Thus, it would not be necessary to have several doctors in the expedition teams, in case one of them requires an intervention. Surgeons located thousands of miles away would be able to operate.
All this seems like science fiction today, but it will probably become the order of the day in the future. We will see it little by little, but let’s stick with its name: spaceMIRA will possibly give us a lot to talk about.