Video Game Technology Tapped to Medically Train Astronauts for Future Moon and Mars Missions

Envision this nightmare scenario. A crew of NASA astronauts are onboard a spacecraft hurtling in the direction of Mars on a single of the first human-crewed missions to the purple world. All of a sudden, a single of the crew has a clinical crisis. They could even pass out, so they cannot notify their fellow crewmembers what is completely wrong. Possibly they are acquiring a coronary heart assault, or an aneurysm, or perhaps it is something much more mundane like negative house ice cream? There is health care machines on board the ship and a flight surgeon on contact again on Earth, but, dependent on when the unexpected emergency usually takes place throughout their journey, it could take a 50 percent hour or far more for the crew to connect with the medical professional. By the time lifesaving clinical suggestions is been given, it could be way too late.

1 answer to this dilemma, which could turn out to be a incredibly true chance as NASA applications like Artemis get ready to send individuals to the Moon and eventually Mars, would be to give astronauts both of those essential and state-of-the-art clinical schooling. That way, they can triage or even begin treatment in emergencies long prior to word reaches Houston about the challenge.

That was the aim of a 2019 grant award from the Translational Analysis Institute for Space Health and fitness, or TRISH, to build a virtual human simulation framework for NASA to assist enhance health care care in the course of house missions. The conclusion consequence experienced to be as ultra-practical as probable. Simply because eventually, lives might depend on the excellent of that teaching.

The award was gained by a company known as Stage Ex, which utilizes movie video game engineering to serve the health-related neighborhood. From digital fact surgery game titles to cell cellular phone titles that support practice dermatologists making use of AI-generated pores and skin disorders, Amount Ex is no stranger to utilizing entertaining, slicing edge movie match technologies to prepare men and women about incredibly really serious subjects. 

The method funded by the grant award is now entire, and is scheduled to be a part of the future SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission that is established to orbit the Earth for numerous times in March. 

NextGov caught up with Stage Ex founder and CEO Sam Glassenberg to speak about generating video clip game titles to aid vital missions, medical training in place and how technologies might just take these extremely major video games and simulations to the upcoming stage.

NextGov: Can you initially explain to us a minor little bit about your history in online video games and game know-how?

Glassenberg: I started my occupation at LucasArts, exactly where I developed Star Wars games for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles. From there I served as a leader of the DirectX Graphics staff at Microsoft, in which our concentrate was to progress the visible realism of movie online games throughout the business. Prior to starting off Degree Ex, I was the CEO of the foremost impartial activity publisher in Hollywood, releasing online games primarily based on well-known movies like The Hunger Games and Mission: Not possible. 

NextGov: When and how did you make a decision to uncovered Level Ex and commence making more significant games and simulations?

Glassenberg: I would love to say that this was some grand plan that I experienced, but truthfully this organization was founded totally by accident—aided by a bit of parental guilt. Coming from a household of physicians, I was constantly viewed as the disgrace for bucking that craze and creating online video games for a living. My father retained pushing me to go to professional medical faculty right until I was about 30 years old, and when that wasn’t feasible anymore he took a new approach. 

An anesthesiologist by trade, he called me up inquiring if I could put this gaming “nonsense” to very good use. He desired me to make a game to train his colleagues to complete a fiberoptic intubation—a challenging technique that even skilled anesthesiologists can battle with. He stated, “make me a activity that can run on their phones—I really do not want to have to drag any person to the training heart.” 

So which is what I did. I sat down for three weekends to toss this activity alongside one another to get my father off of my back again. 3 decades later, he known as me to test on the game, and when I checked the Apple keep, there ended up about 100,000 downloads from medical doctors, nurses and airway professionals. 

Evidently there was great demand from customers for this and an option for some serious effect.

NextGov: Why is it a very good issue to use video recreation technology for medical teaching? How does usual online video video game know-how review with what is employed by current medical simulations?

Glassenberg: The video game titles industry is many years in advance of health care education in terms of graphics technology—even ahead of you start chatting about XR headsets and whatnot. We have been chaotic closing that gap—building on top rated of the newest activity technological innovation to make extremely-sensible affected person scenarios. 

For instance, we’ve crafted on best of online video video game pores and skin rendering know-how to create a platform that will allow us to recreate any pores and skin disease on skin of any shade and any entire body part—and it is indistinguishable from images. We’ve utilized graphics components honed for game titles to do anything from genuine-time fluid and tissue simulation to tracing ultrasound waves and x-rays. 

We have also created upon cloud gaming technologies to build the very first and only cloud gaming system for healthcare. This enables several health care pros to remotely take a look at, diagnose and perform surgical treatment on digital sufferers simulated in the cloud. Considering that all the computing is cloud-dependent, users can entry it from any cell phone, pill or desktop web browser more than Zoom or Microsoft Teams. There is no have to have to put in any software or have any further hardware, like a VR headset, on hand. 

NextGov: Notify us about the TRISH grant software for NASA. How true did they require the video game to be in order to support teach astronauts? 

Glassenberg: Extremely-realism was essential to the Digital Human Simulation Framework project, in order for customers to precisely discover anatomy and medical problems common in house. These healthcare disorders can involve Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome, or SANS cardiac rhythm issues and improvements in the form of the coronary heart thanks to extended microgravity exposure, precisely atrial fibrillation and adverse wellbeing outcomes because of to host-microorganism interaction, exclusively respiratory bacterial infections.

To this conclude, the task essential aggregation and visualization of details from spaceflight healthcare investigate research, terrestrial health-related investigate and greatest exercise tips. Level Ex has medical experts on team, a medical professional advisor and a big contributor community comprised of hundreds of experts throughout the globe. For this job, we also consulted with authorities in ultrasound mechanics and medical radiology from the College of Illinois Chicago, NASA and the KBR firm. 

Our exploration and progress workforce produced some of the most sophisticated actual-time ultrasound simulation technological know-how readily available to date and demonstrated its software within a virtual headset platform. Our tech in essence methods graphics components that is developed to simulate seen gentle in movie game titles to alternatively trace ultrasound waves, recreating the complicated artifacts that consequence from every little thing from acoustic shadowing—because, sure, audio casts a shadow—to ringdown outcomes triggered by ultrasound waves echoing inside of tissues. 

To prepare crews on these forms of pitfalls, our teaching state of affairs gives customers with an built-in scientific education atmosphere that incorporates clinical conclusion mechanics, virtual astronaut versions and serious-time ultrasound simulation technology that gives the amount of ultra-realism vital to impression and recognize unique situations. 

NextGov: How is the Amount Ex simulation and engineering becoming employed on the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission?

Glassenberg: Crews must be well prepared to diagnose and handle by themselves as healthcare problems come up in the course of area exploration missions, and smart clinical imaging remedies are integral in constructing non-doctor astronauts’ comprehending of modifications occurring inside the physique when they are thousands of miles from dwelling.

Building on our prior function and in collaboration with TRISH and KBR, the alternative we developed for the Polaris Dawn mission consists of two parts—both aimed at enabling astronauts to better monitor their health and optimize their protection in area. Initial, there is the pre-flight orientation and training guidebook to educate the crew how to use a handheld Butterfly iQ unit for ultrasound imaging that will be onboard the spacecraft. Then, in the course of the 5-working day orbit mission, the crew will use just-in-time training and procedural steering that we produced to complete the ultrasound techniques on them selves and accumulate data. In purchase to discover a lot more about how the zero gravity atmosphere influences the human system, the crew will be tracking their blood movement styles every day. 

This experiment will also examination the efficacy of utilizing virtual instruction alternatives like movie game titles for just-in-time schooling on healthcare technology and procedures. 

NextGov: That all sounds actually awesome. Do you think that movie activity know-how and these forms of sensible medical simulations will turn into a need for maintaining long term astronauts harmless in house?

Glassenberg: If house journey is going to come to be commercialized, we’re going to want alternatives to quickly train laypeople how to offer with medical emergencies in resource-constrained environments. It will be a long time just before we see an MRI machine up in area, but with just-in-time instruction on a handheld ultrasound machine, we can handle some of deep space’s pretty distinct healthcare coaching requires. 

There is also the concern of teaching time. Astronauts trained for several years for the 8 day Apollo missions. There is no time in the instruction program for upcoming multiyear Mars missions to present astronauts with a health-related diploma in place health. In several cases, astronauts will need to have to prepare independently on a just-in-time foundation as concerns crop up. This virtual schooling system is developed to do just that.

While conventional in-individual instruction often necessitates expensive simulation labs, which are not normally obtainable and may well need travel, our video clip video games can be accessed anywhere, at any time. On top of that, the digital nature of our system allows us to simply update and scale the video games to handle the newest advancements in a particular technique or tailor them to distinct demands. 

John Breeden II is an award-profitable journalist and reviewer with about 20 many years of working experience covering engineering. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a team that creates technological believed leadership content for companies of all dimensions. Twitter: @LabGuys