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Wired has a story about the challenging (and largely unexplored) area of surgery and traumatic injury in space.
Currently shorter term, near earth missions concentrate training on how to stabilize and restrain injured astronauts, and then contact a specialist on the ground and work out a plan to get them home for treatment.
However as longer term Moon and Mars missions become a more realistic prospect this is an area where the need to deal with major injuries in space, and handle the communications lag to specialist support, introduce a new set of problems.
Over decades of Apollo, Mir, Skylab, space shuttle, and International Space Station missions, astronauts have had medical concerns and problems—and, of course, there have been deadly catastrophes. But no astronaut has ever had a major injury or needed surgery in space. If humans ever again venture past low Earth orbit and outward toward, say, Mars, someone is going to get hurt. A 2002 ESA report put the chances of a bad medical problem on a space mission at 0.06 per person-year. As Komorowski wrote in a journal article last year, for a crew of six on a 900-day mission to Mars, that's pretty much one major emergency all but guaranteed.
The article also contains a link to an article on the ISS medical equipment, obtained by Vice through a Freedom Of Information request.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday August 20 2017, @05:22PM (7 children)
I thought the horrors of space surgery was still aliens bursting out of the chest cavity, then proceed to spread horror and death on board the ship until you are forced to destroy it. (1)
On that note isn't the problem of space surgery and trauma the same as for submarines, potentially not counting gravity issues. They usually can't abandon their mission, they are out for a long time in a remote location. Someone could technically be airlifted out but it might take many many hours or days before that is possible. So someone has to be sedated and restrained and kept alive until then. Similar issues can also probably be found on more or less any remote location where rescue might be days away.
Wouldn't it be easier to just have all astronauts have an appendectomy before they go into space? It's a useless appendix after all so why risk it bursting in space when you can just remove it easily on earth before going?
I really wish they would have described the dental surgery in space a bit more, from personal experience it sucked to have it done on earth -- don't want to imagine removing teeth in space. There better be some sweet ass pain drugs available.
So many obvious probing jokes to insert here.
Not so much of the 'right stuff' then. Has the quality of astronauts really gone downhill or what?
I thought NASA was against space orgies. Unless of cause it's used as a hormonal supplement to alleviate PMS-issues. Naturally even if they have a space orgy it's not like Huston can do that much about it since they somewhat beyond their reach. If I'm not mistaken most astronauts only visit space a few times so if you know it will probably be your last time you might as well go for it.
(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD6AL3HJtM [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 20 2017, @06:11PM (3 children)
I had a shipmate who developed kidney stones at sea. This wouldn't have been a really big deal in calm weather - just radio the carrier, the carrier sends a helicopter, and the patient is medevacced to the carrier, and the care of real doctors equipped with state of the art equipment. Unfortunately for Bill, the weather was far to rough for helicopters, which meant that boats were out of the question. The man laid in his bunk for days, suffering, before he could be medevacced.
Submarines? An attack boat probably has almost all the same options our destroyer had. Boomers, I'm not sure about. The cold war is over, so they may not risk a crewman's life to keep their location secret. Or, they might.
We can be pretty sure that there will be lives lost, simply because we don't know how to treat injuries in space. Eventually, we'll figure that stuff out, but it's going to take time. If fuel is allocated for potential emergencies, the crew can make some pseudo-gravity with thrust. Maybe enough to deal with the emergency, anyway.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 20 2017, @06:18PM
We could create a billion dollar robotic medical system capable of carrying out various surgeries remotely.
One benefit of being on the ISS rather than a submarine is that your health is very closely monitored [nasa.gov], since investigating the effects of microgravity on human health is one of the main goals of the ISS. So they might be able to catch problems earlier and have more time to get the astronaut back to Earth.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @07:19PM (1 child)
Boomers always go on patrol with a medical officer aboard. Submerged appendectomies and trauma treatment are not uncommon.
The biggest medical threat to submariners is STDs.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @02:58AM
You make a claim that almost sounds like it might be correct. Then, you make another claim about sexual proclivities that you almost certainly know nothing about. Go away, troll. Despite congress' progressive attempts, I'm not believing that the crews of boomers, or any other ships, are all flaming faggots. At most, gays only make up about 2% of the population, and the military has always reflected the demographics of the US population at large. Well, except for the very rich. Medium rich become officers, and very rich sit back and laugh, using the military as pawns on their big chess board.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @06:54PM (1 child)
Not only just outer space, it would be best to get it removed before any international flight or cruise where immediate medical care would not be possible. Similarly, toenails serve no purpose and can be removed at the same time.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 21 2017, @07:24PM
> Similarly, toenails serve no purpose and can be removed at the same time.
A service provided for free during any Middle-East layover on CIAir.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @02:19AM
Having the pill available in the event of a space orgy is not incompatible with NASA being against space orgies. NASA is not against space orgies as an unrealistic authoritarian/religious matter, but is in favor of a basic part of women's health: control over her own body. Of course's NASA's policy excludes space orgies. Being practical about women astronauts' health is also important.
When I was a guy, I didn't understand that either, but I also used to believe in sky fairies back then too.