NASA's Robonaut 2 and Dr. Zsolt Garami, of the Houston Methodist Research Institute, practice telemedicine techniques during a test of the robot's bedside manner. This image is a still from a NASA video documenting the Robonaut 2 test. NASA

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Gallery: Robonaut 2 will make history when it blasts off Thursday with the space shuttle Discovery

Having a robotic "physician" would take some pressure off of the astronauts. Currently, NASA astronauts are trained as basic surgeons before embarking on their space missions, which often last six months.

In a video released by NASA, an Earth-bound twin of R2 performed an ultrasound scan on a mannequin. It used a syringe to perform mock injections as part of the ultrasound.

"Humans at the controls are able to perform the task correctly and efficiently by using R2's dexterity to apply the appropriate level of force and can track their progress using R2's vision system," officials added in the video's YouTube description.

One of the key benefits is the speed at which the robots learn.

"I would say that within an hour I trained him more than with other studentsI'm working for a week, so I think that he's learning really fast," Garami says in the video.

"This demonstration of robotic capabilities could one day result in the ability for physicians to conduct complex medical procedures on humans in remote locations," the officials added, "whether on the Earth's surface or even in low Earth orbit."

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NASA training robot to perform medical procedures in space