Space-driven technology aids medicine, NASA doc says at Fort Smith convention – Times Record

By Larry Williams II Times Record lwilliams@swtimes.com

Robots. Artificial hearts. 3D printing of human tissue.

It may sound like science fiction, but as Dr. J.D. Polk, chief medical officer at NASA, pointed out at his keynote lecture, Journey of Exploration, during the 32nd Annual Arkansas Osteopathic Medical Association convention Saturday, these are all science fact thanks to space exploration.

Youd be surprised how much exploration has to do with medicine, said Polk to a packed lecture hall at the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM), 7000 Chad Colley Blvd. Right now, NASA is the busiest its ever been.

Polk was referring to the planning and preparation occurring at NASA for the first manned mission to Mars. He said the United States space agency is busier now than they were during the Apollo missions of the 1960s.

The amount of technology invented (for the Apollo program) is huge, said Polk. Right now, we all think that hydrogen fuel cells for cars is a new invention. Hydrogen fuels cells are how the lunar module landed on the moon. The biggest hassle was power, at that time. We didnt have solar panels.

Along with power, the space program also needed to reduce a computer the size of a room to fit on the lunar module, which was 23 feet tall by 31 feet wide and deep. The circuit board was born, which is now present in everything from a cell phone to childs toy.

An iPhone has more computing power than the lunar module, added Polk.

He noted that the amount of technology needed to be invented for the Mars mission will far outstrip the lunar missions. On the moon, astronauts stayed for a handful of days.

A one-way trip to Mars will take approximately six months.

Mars and Earth dont stay lined up constantly, said Polk. You have to wait until the two of them are lined up before you launch. And then, because they dont stay together, youre staying on the surface of Mars for 18 months, and then its another six months back.

Polk, as chief health and medical officer, is responsible for writing up the human factors for all of the vehicles being developed for the Mars mission. Such considerations as time spent in a zero-gravity atmosphere, both on the vehicles and on the planet, and how that affects human health come into play.

Outside of the future Mars mission, Dr. Polk showed the trickle-down effect of space exploration technology into medicine. The same impeller design used by the space shuttles fuel pumps was used by a cardiothoracic surgeon in Texas on a miniature scale to keep end-stage heart failure patients alive.

A lot of things came from the space shuttle, said Polk. The space shuttle windows, because they get hit with micro-meteoroids, they get scratched constantly by small bits. If you can imagine something the size of a grain of sand hitting that glass at 17,500 miles per hour, its going to leave a mark.

Because of that, we now have scratch guard lenses for eyeglasses.

NASA has two robots who have inspired prosthetics for the physically disabled: Robonaut and Valkyrie. Because of them, Polk showed slides of current hardware for amputees that perfectly mimics human movement.

But perhaps the most astonishing technology previewed was 3D printers that produce skin grafts for burn victims. Polk said that a sample of a patients cells would be taken as the raw material for the printer, thus eliminating the chances of rejection of the new graft by the patients body.

This isnt just something thats five, ten years down the road, said Polk. This is happening now.

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Space-driven technology aids medicine, NASA doc says at Fort Smith convention - Times Record