Feel Safe, Mars Travelers, Virtual Reality-Assisted Space Surgery Is Here

Humans are pretty fragile. A bad break in your hip can mean surgery and months of rehab. That’s pretty bad, but what if you fall and break your hip on the Moon, or even Mars? You’d be hundreds of thousands or millions of miles from a fully stocked hospital and a surgeon with steady hands. There’s the option of doctor-assisted surgery from Earth — a fellow astronaut performing the surgery with remote assistance from a doctor via video link. But the lengthy communications delay make this a poor option anywhere further than the Moon.

Luckily for our Mars-bound descendants, the European Space Agency has a solution: an information-loaded assisted reality helmet that will let anyone identify and perform minor surgery to repair injuries.

The Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis and Surgery System, CAMDASS, is a wearable augmented reality helmet that injects computer generated models and information directly into the wearer’s field of view.

CAMDASS uses a stereo head-mounted display calibrated to the wearer’s vision. The system tracks and registers the patient with an ultrasound tool that tracks markers on the body using an infrared camera. The wearer sees his own reality as well as what CAMDASS sees. A perfectly matched and three-dimensional computer overlay will appear over the patient. Cue cards will appear on the patient to guide the wearer, and images will tell him what he ought to be seeing, and what he needs to correct. This way, the wearer will be able to correctly identify and diagnose injuries. To give the wearer full use of his hands for any necessary treatment, CAMDASS is entirely voice operated.

But that’s not the best part. CAMDASS is totally autonomous. The wearer doesn’t get the information uploaded from a doctor on Earth, it’s all within the system. It’s realtime information that could theoretically change as the situation changes. A sudden problem in a surgery will register just as suddenly to CAMDASS. This is the aspect that makes it a real candidate for medical analysis in long duration spaceflight.

Right now, the system is in a prototype stage with its diagnostic skills the focus in testing. But it works, and the possible applications of an advanced CAMDASS system are endless.

The Saint-Pierre University Hospital in Brussels, medical and nursing students with the Belgian Red Cross, and paramedic staff were the first wearers to test the system. Space Applications Services NV in Belgium, the company behind the product, found that untrained wearers were able to perform reasonably difficult procedures without outside help, as long as the probe with the infrared camera was positioned correctly.

This first successful experience has convinced the European Space Agency that the system is worth pursuing. The agency is looking to refine the system, reducing the weight of the head-mounted display and eliminating some overall bulk that will make the CAMDASS more suited to wider applications. It could assist emergency responders dealing with in situ medical needs, remote locations in third world countries, and the Concordia Antarctic base.

After Antarctica, low Earth orbit is the next logical remote location. It’s not that far-fetched, as ultrasounds are already used as a diagnostic tool on the International Space Station. NASA’s Human Research Facility uses ultrasounds to gather high resolution images and conduct exams on crewmembers to help develop strategies for diagnostic telemedicine both in space and on Earth.

But imagine if a crew en route to Mars could perform minor surgery on one another. Even with a doctor on the crew, a headset to give any crewmember all the information he could need is an appealing prospect. Not to mention it might be a key technology ensuring the whole crew arrive alive and in good health to explore. That is, once we figure out things like whether tissue will repair and blood will clot in zero gravity.