April 19, 2022
In a major breakthrough for telemedicine, a digital rendering of a doctor paid a home visit to the International Space Station last year.
NASA Flight Surgeon Josef Schmid, MD, AEXA Aerospace CEO Fernando De La Pena Llaca, and their crews were on Earth when their images visited the space station through “holoportare,” a mixture of “hologram” and “teleportation.” .
The 3D models of Schmid and the others were reconstructed, compressed and transmitted live to the space station, NASA said in a press release. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet used a set of HoloLens headphones to see, hear and interact with remote participants as if they were actually present in the same physical space, NASA said. Astronauts and Earthbound visitors even exchanged a virtual handshake.
“This is a whole new way of human communication over long distances,” Schmid said. “Our physical body is not there, but our human entity is absolutely there. It doesn’t matter that the space station travels at 27,500 mph and in constant motion in orbit 250 miles above Earth, the astronaut can return three minutes or three weeks later, and with the system running, we’ll be there live. on the space station. ”