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NASA Performs Zero-G Robot Surgery for Mars, Iraq
An anonymous reader writes "With rapid-response surgery needed in Iraq and super-long-distance medicine a far-off necessity for a manned trip to Mars, NASA recently sent eight astronauts, roboticists and surgeons on its 'Vomit Comet,' pitting real doctors against new robotic ones. As if the prospect of a portable robo-OR deploying to Iraq by 2009 weren't enticing enough, one of the surgeons on board promised this in his flight blog: 'So far, surgery by hand is still the most efficient way to get the job done in a mobile, extreme environment. But robots are advancing rapidly... The solution that roboticists are working on now is to CAT scan a patient's entire body and beam the results back to Earth. Then a surgeon could program an operation and beam it back to upload into a robo-surgeon, which could carry out procedures like a player piano.'"
Right, but the idea is that simply recording motions from the doctor and playing them back with a robot won't work.
The player piano only works because a piano is a predictable, static thing. It responds in exactly the same way to the same stimulus, every time. The body is not. Fast-acting feedback mechanisms are important for all sorts of things, from maintaining balance to doing surgery.
If we're using musical metaphors: if you take a choir and teach them a piece, then give them earplugs and ask them to perform it, they'll drift out of tune rather quickly; singers rely on constant aural feedback to stay in tune with each other.
ambitious plan--perhaps too ambitious. why not start with a robotic ointment-squeezer or band-aid applier...see how that works out first