NASA to send prototype robot surgeon into space

NASA is funding research to build an autonomous robot gripper theoretically capable of performing medical surgery, and which is to be launched to the International Space Station in 2024. The machine, named MIRA, will be developed by engineers at Virtual Incision, a startup spun out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the …

[druck]

Messy

Surgery on earth is pretty messy, I hate to imagine what it would be like in micro gravity, there's going to have to be a lot of suction.

[Binraider]

Nice project; practical me says you still want a ships doctor if you absolutely must take a human crew.

Speed of light means that comms to Mars are impractical for telemedicine at that range. Although I suppose it would be possible to have a doctor cover multiple ships and facilities by telemedicine if already in the local area.

[Little Mouse]

I bet the Apollo crews would have removed their own appendixes if necessary, with a nothing more than a rusty old penknife & mirror on a stick. And maybe a whisky sour or two for medicinal purposes.

[Sgt_Oddball]

What you mean like

Leonid Rogozov? The Soviet doctor who did the same thing but in the Antarctic? Only with abit more room and gravity to help with things.

Beer icon because there isn't a vodka one.

[b0llchit]

Robotic surgical overlord

Dammit Jim, I'm a piece of autonomous equipment, not a doctor

Shouldn't that be "He's dead Jim"?

[Twanky]

Re: Robotic surgical overlord

"...but not as we know it"?

[Mike 137]

"The near-term mission for MIRA, however, isn't learning to perform surgery automatically"

Very sensible decision, that. The big problem with surgery is that, despite the generality of anatomic features, the internal detail of every individual is rather different.. Consequently, a surgeon needs a well developed ability to understand the significance of what they're looking at and respond appropriately very swiftly. I'm not at all convinced that, even in 50-100 years, we will have created automata that can understand anything - if for no other reason that that we don't understand how understanding actually works despite it having been studied assiduously and quite rigorously for well over 100 years.

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: "The near-term mission for MIRA, however, isn't learning to perform surgery automatically"

"a surgeon needs a well developed ability to understand" ... and ... "we don't understand how understanding actually works"

Maybe we need an equivalent of the Turing Test, this time for understanding.

[Roger Greenwood]

Never mind surgeons in space

Where's my tricorder?

[stiine]

What if it works very well?

Would one of the astronauts, say, one with a mole or other harmless external protuberance, would they test it further? It could be a $40M toenail clipper with integral disposal grippers.

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting thought experiment

Thought - "get that away from me!"

[LoPath]

Appendix

Who knows... in 100 years, the appendix might finally go away.

[gormful]

An autonomous robot surgeon would be wildly useful right here on Earth, from underserved communities to the battlefield.

The only reason this is a "Robot Surgeon -- In SPAAAACE!" is that NASA is willing to fund it.

[Bartholomew]

You do need a lot of data points for a good dataset.

I'm just thinking that every use of this surgeon in the micro gravity of Low earth Orbit will eventually become part of the training data set for an eventual bot to do one-G to zero-G surgery. Which is amazing, so I expect that these will eventually be deployed on Earth (1.0 g). And the Moon (0.16 g) and Mars (0.38 g), to maximise data harvesting to make them better.

[Bartholomew]

Re: You do need a lot of data points for a good dataset.

The real problem for the US would be that it needs the approval of the American Medical Association for use in the US and its territories - and that will never happen, since they fully control the monopoly (what would their quarter of a million members think). It is even funny that it would align very well with their mission statement "to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health."

[Marty McFly]

Robotic surgery....

Family friend went in for neck surgery at Mayo clinic. Robot nicked his carotid artery causing a slow bleed that was not detected. That led to an eventual clot and then a stroke. What should have been a routine surgery of a minor tumor ended up disabling him.

No thanks to robotic surgery, it is not ready for prime time yet.

[Evil Auditor]

Re: Robotic surgery....

As tragic as this is, there is no risk-free surgery, being it humans or ribots doing the job.

[hplasm]

May I just be the first to say-

*bootup_sequence_completed*

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

[bill 27]

Re: May I just be the first to say-

*initial_incision_complete*

*probes_inserted*

*appendix_removal_initiated*

*system_reboot_in_progress_please_wait*

[Evil Auditor]

Interesting to see how differently exactly it behaves in micro gravity.

Otherwise, wake me again when we see the likes as documented in the Alien franchise.

[BackToTheFuture]

That's not the bad-loser robotic arm that grabbed that poor child's finger and broke it whilst playing chess, is it? tinyurl.com/cj8cahtf

Wouldn't want that grabbing anything I don't already have at least two of.

[Martin Gregorie]

A WALDO has been made at last!

This type of remote manipulation system was first described by Robert A Heinlein in his short novel "Waldo", published in August 1942, so its only taken 80 years to realize. The novel is in a book, "Waldo and Magic, Inc" together with a rather different story, "Magic Inc", also written by Heinlein.

Seriously, a nice job by the team:.This is a good and useful thing to finally have up and working.

[Sleep deprived]

Free trip to the ISS

Offered to volunteers for a vasectomy in zero-gravity. The view from the recovery room is out of this world!