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ISS NASA Space

NASA Sent Hologram Doctors To ISS To Visit Astronauts (space.com) 44

Posted by BeauHD from the this-is-only-the-beginning dept.
In 2021, a team of hologram doctors was "holoported" to space to visit astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, NASA has revealed in a new post. Space.com reports: The hologram teams, led by NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid and Fernando De La Pena Llaca, CEO of software provider Aexa Aerospace, were the first humans to ever be "holoported" from Earth to space. "This is completely new manner of human communication across vast distances," Schmid said in the statement. "Furthermore, it is a brand-new way of human exploration, where our human entity is able to travel off the planet. Our physical body is not there, but our human entity absolutely is there."

"It doesn't matter that the space station is traveling 17,500 mph [28,000 kilometers per hour] and in constant motion in orbit 250 miles [400 km] above Earth, the astronaut can come back three minutes or three weeks later and with the system running, we will be there in that spot, live on the space station," Schmid added. The medical teams holoported to the station on Oct. 8. Using the Microsoft Hololens Kinect camera and a personal computer with custom Aexa software, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who was on board the station at that time, had a holo-conversation with Schmid and De La Pena's teams. The holograms of the doctors were visible live in the middle of the space station.

So how did it work? The "holoportation" technology that enabled this event works using specialized image capture technology that reconstructs, compresses and transmits live 3D models of people. This technology couples with the HoloLens, a self-described "mixed reality headset" that combines sensors, optics and holographic processing tech to allow the wearer to see the hologram images or even enter a "virtual world." With the two systems combined, users in orbit can not only see hologram participants, but can also hear and interact with them. The technology is not new, but has never been used in an environment this challenging with users so far apart.
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NASA Sent Hologram Doctors To ISS To Visit Astronauts More

NASA Sent Hologram Doctors To ISS To Visit Astronauts

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  • Please state the nature (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @02:10AM (#62458612)

    of the medical emergency.

  • I read TFA and looked at Microsoft's Hololens for healthcare site. They sure do beat the Star Trek "holographic" buzzword to death! Apparently it is an AR display visor. Which in itself is kinda neat. But there is nothing indicating that it would be useful in space, except for as a psychological tool to allow an astronaut who is freaking out to "see his doctor" in a somewhat 3D form. Perhaps more privacy but the other astronauts can still hear him. The interview with the doctor who decided whether or not to put the astronaut on blood thinner meds says nothing about Hololens, but there is a picture of a bunch of doctor's disembodied upper bodies superimposed on the ISS so I suppose that is what the astronaut sees. I guess it would be comforting and the psychological side may even be huge for them but in terms of actually providing medical care I dunno. I guess they already had a hololens(tm) AR headset at the ISS and decided to try it out for medical care since the emergency came up? I don't know if that would be appropriate really from a medical perspective.

    • Re:PR-driven urgent healthcare, what could go wron (Score:4, Interesting)

      by OolimPhon ( 1120895 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @04:10AM (#62458796)

      The more important aspect of this would be the reverse: if the doctors on the ground (or wherever) could examine the patient via hololens.

      Taken to a logical conclusion, those doctors might one day even be able to perform emergency surgery - or at least direct astronauts who did so under direction.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mattr ( 78516 )

        Perhaps. I am guessing that AR would be useful in space where mission control can relay a procedure for fixing or manufacturing something using a 3d model (a digital twin simulation perhaps) that is overlayed on what the astronaut sees as a guide or training tool.. at least that is what the hololens website seems to be selling. If it was me in space I would prefer depending on a high definition camera so they can actually see the color of skin/eyes/test strips rather than blurry voxels but who knows maybe i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      >But there is nothing indicating that it would be useful in space,

      are you *always* this dismissive of solutions in search of problems?

      some people's children . . .

  • The holo-doctor looks like the orange guy! I'd rather die wriggling and frothing of space rabies than get "treated" by Dr. Bleach.

  • That's just VR/AR. Everyone knows holo-emitters are 25th century technology
  • We need holograms of patients to come to the doctor dont we. What will patients do seeing the doctor? Unless its counseling or something

  • What is the use of Astronauts, or anybody really, to see a holographic doctor?

    A doctor seeing a holographic patient is what we need.

  • Virtual Hacking 101 (Score:3)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @04:15AM (#62458804)

    (Meanwhile, back on Planet Corruption)

    Just imagine when you contact your VR agent at your insurance company to report a deepfake video of your spam-hacked doctor sending barely-authenticated Rx scripts digitally to the pill mills...only to find out the VR insurance agent, isn't real either. They got hacked too.

    Think insurance fraud and spam are bad now? Cue the deepfake VR spam "contact me right away" medical results from the trusted family doctor in 3...2...VR/AI will stand in front of no 1...

  • I think an astronaut is trained to take a advice from a doctor in a normal video or audio call. Having a doctor seeing an patient in 3d would be more useful (and more difficult technically). So its probably more a marketing ploy for MS than of any real use.

  • breathless marketing summary (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @07:04AM (#62458990) Journal

    ...of what was basically a zoom call with VR goggles.

    Who wrote this crap?

  • How long did the patients have to wait in the holo-lobby? Did they read old holo-magazines to pass the time?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tgeek ( 941867 )
      No, the "find the hidden objects in the picture" puzzle in the holo-Highlights magazine already had the all the objects circled (in ink no less!)

  • Our physical body is not there, but our human entity absolutely is there.

    Wouldn't it be much cheaper (and safer) to then have the *nauts bodies stay groundside - where their IRL doctors can actually touch them - and just "absolutely holoport the *nauts' entities" up to the ISS?

    Or is it that *nauts are fungible and replaceable if something should go wrong with their bodies, but not the ISS?

    And as an aside, this GenXer really wants to know what is up with the whole move toward having to see talking (sometim

    • Absolutely - a person tele-operating a robot doing the work whenever possible is the obvious long-term application of telepresence in space. Maybe not this particular manifestation, but the general trend. I'd assume a teleoperator would actually have full VR immersion in the environment rather than looking at an AR overlay.

      HOWEVER, keeping the astronaut safe on Earth only really works for low Earth orbit. Beyond that the speed-of-light lag makes things difficult. Even just going to the moon introduces a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BranMan ( 29917 )

      Right there with you Mr.. uh, Butcher.

      What is happening is that we are spending tons of money to develop tons of infrastructure to deliver web streamed video at 100's to 1000's of Mbits per second - all to end up with human speech for conveying the actual needed information. It's mind-boggling.

      Which is a whopping 23 bits per second. Yep! Human speech conveys information at 23 Baud. Makes my damn head explode, much less old-geezeritis acting up.

      That is, of course, a maximum of 23 bits per second - can be

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        I needed to find the firing order of a Ford V-8.

        This is simply the numbers {1, . . 8} in some order or another.

        The first many hits were multi-minute videos!

  • Or an advertisement for Microsoft?

  • .. when Leela tries to have a virtual session with Dr. Zoidberg?

  • It would be nice if they would stop calling things like this holograms. They aren't holograms since you need to be wearing a "mixed reality headset" to see the doctors. A true hologram wouldn't need the headsets. I guess like a lot of words hologram is slowly losing touch with its true definition but I would still say it is a stretch to be calling the products in this instance holograms.

  • Does the holo-doctor stick his finger up his own butt while the astronaut watches?

  • Hologram already has a defined meaning, and it's different tech

    • Darned right. The media keep eating up this bullshit from Microsoft... unchecked for many years now. Stereoscopy is an old but applicable term. The difference or advancement here would seem to be that a computer has overlaid one image source on another. Like Zoom does but stereoscopically.

  • But will be a lot more useful when the holodoctor gets a mobile emitter.

  • "don't be afraid, little people, 'cause we're just Holy-grams!"

  • Hololens has nothing to do with holography or holograms.
  • We can thank Star Trek for inspiration

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