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Robots Might Allow For Space Surgery

Posted by Zonk on from the hold-your-hand-steady dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Robots might allow for delicate surgeries in space, reports the Washington Post." From the article: "The tiny, wheeled robots, which are about 3 inches tall and as wide as a lipstick case, can be slipped into small incisions and computer-controlled by surgeons in different locations. Some robots are equipped with cameras and lights and can send back images to surgeons. Others have surgical tools attached that can be controlled remotely ... Officials hope that next spring, NASA will teach astronauts to use the robots so that surgeries could one day be performed in space. Delays in communication because of the distance to space would mean surgeons on earth would have tell astronauts what commands to give the robots"

9 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. delay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    yeah but isn't the same delay present in telling the astronauts what to do as well?

  2. Gonner by Gogogoch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm afraid that unless you take a surgeon with you, if you need an operation in space you're a gonner. Robots... yeah right.

  3. Space Surgery? by AppleFever · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I read the article, but why do we need to do surgeries in space? I would estimate that no more than 10 people are ever in orbit at one time, and usually we don't send up people to space in need of surgery.

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    1. Re:Space Surgery? by anotherzeb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I get your point about people in space being unlikely to need surgery, but if I was going into orbit or even if manned Mars mission ever become likely (not something I'm expecting anytime soon) I think I'd feel better if there was something that could help if I had some kind of accident that left me needing surgery

      --
      Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
    2. Re:Space Surgery? by timeOday · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure it will wind up primarily a battlefield technology. (The article does mention military applications). The inital focus on space just means the developers got their funding from NASA instead of DARPA, that's all.

    3. Re:Space Surgery? by m50d · · Score: 2, Insightful
      True not taking a doctor with you would leave more room for others, but would you really go on an 18 month journey without a doctor? Why not take the surgeon along who has can not only heal but deal with other biological studies.(Plants, human behavior, etc)

      With the amount it's costing and so forth, I'd want the very best scientists going along. As long as they're able to get there, all else is secondary. And as another reply said, a surgeon who isn't a specialist in your area, which is the best we can usually hope for, will probably do better with these robots than without them.

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  4. OK, but by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think I'll get excited about this when they start using it locally as a superior technology to regular surgery. I mean, if this is such a great option, why aren't they using this as a replacement for an 8-inch incision?

    --
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  5. Solving tomorrow's problems today. by Isldeur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Robots might allow for delicate surgeries in space,

    Rrright. I'm glad we're solving *tomorrow's* problems today. Shouldn't we first actually get a space program?

  6. Inverted Priorities by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is SO pointless. Remote-controlled robots to perform surgey in space, on the slight chance that an astronaut has an unforseen urgent emergency? Why not just build robots to do the astronauts' jobs via remote-control, and skip this trickiness?

    Consider the relative difficulty of invasive surgery in comparison to installing a PCI card or changing the lubricant in an automobile. Repair work on a machine (which can have been intentionally designed for easy servicing) is incomprably simpler than trying to heal a live human by cutting her up.

    The differences are magnified at orbital or interplanetary distances, were telecommunications lag comes into play. Even a few seconds delay between commands could have a human patient bleeding to death, but machines can be powered down before maintenance, meaning NASA can easily take 60 minutes to direct each individual step (and then wait the same time to get images of the result).

    Once we've got robots that can reliably fix a flat-tire by transcontinental remote-control, then we can start to think about robosurgery. Walk before you can run; solder before you can suture.

    (Furthermore, if something goes wrong, a dead astronaut killed by a misaligned surgeon-bot is more expensive than a satellite disabled by a mechanic-bot, once all the costs from negative publicity have been factored in)