The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link
attachments:

Shortcut to: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/aug/HQ_04264_neemo.txt

August 11, 2004
Melissa Mathews
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1272)

Kelly Humphries
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

Nicole Gignac
Canadian Space Agency, Montreal
(Phone: 450/926-4423)

Fred Gorell
NOAA, Silver Spring, Md.
(Phone: 301/713-9444 Ext. 181)

RELEASE: 04-264

UNDERSEA HABITAT BECOMES EXPERIMENTAL HOSPITAL FOR NEEMO 7

The days of doctors making house calls may seem like ancient history for
most patients in North
America, but in October, three astronauts and a Canadian doctor will
test the latest concepts in
long-distance house calls using a unique underwater laboratory.

The ability to conduct long-distance health care such as telemonitoring
and telerobotic surgery
could be key to maintaining the wellness of future spacefarers and
responding to medical
emergencies on the International Space Station, the moon or Mars.
Techniques will be tested on a
simulated patient during the upcoming seventh mission of the NASA
Extreme Environment Mission
Operations (NEEMO) project.

Canadian Astronaut Dave Williams will lead a crew on the 10-day undersea
mission October 11-20
aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
Aquarius Underwater Laboratory,
located off the coast of Key Largo, Fla.

"Astronauts navigating between planets won't be able to turn around and
come home when someone gets
sick, and this undersea mission will help chart a course for
long-distance healing," said NEEMO
Project Manager Bill Todd. "Aquarius, with its physical and
psychological isolation on the floor of
the Atlantic, will provide the real stresses needed to validate
telemedicine in an extreme
environment," he added

NASA Astronauts Mike Barratt and Cady Coleman, as well as Dr. Craig
McKinley of the Centre for
Minimal Access Surgery at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, Ontario,
will join Williams in the
experiment. Williams, Barratt, and McKinley are physicians. Air Force
Lt. Col. Coleman holds a
Ph.D. in engineering. Two other engineers, James Talacek and Ross Hein
of the University of North
Carolina at Wilmington, will work side-by-side with the crew in
Aquarius.

According to Dr. Mehran Anvari, Director of the McMaster University
Centre for Minimal Access
Surgery at St. Joseph's Healthcare, NEEMO 7 will demonstrate and
evaluate innovative technologies
and procedures for remote surgery. Anvari, who will be based in Hamilton
during the mission, will
use two-way telecommunication links to guide the aquanauts through
diagnosis and surgery on a mock
patient inside Aquarius. Another simulation will involve virtual reality
control technology to
guide telerobotic surgery on the mock patient.

Similar in size to the International Space Station's living quarters,
Aquarius is the world's only
permanent underwater habitat and research laboratory. The 45-foot long,
13-foot diameter complex is
three miles off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
It rests about 62 feet
beneath the surface.

A buoy on the surface provides power, life support and communications
capabilities for Aquarius. A
shore-based mission control for the Aquarius laboratory in Florida and a
control room at NASA's
Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, known as the Exploration Planning
Operations Center, will
monitor the crew's activities.

Aquarius is owned by NOAA, operated by University of North Carolina at
Wilmington, and funded by
NOAA's Undersea Research Program. The NEEMO missions are a cooperative
project between NASA, NOAA
and the University.

Reporters interested in interviewing the NEEMO 7 crewmembers during
their mission should contact the
JSC newsroom at 281/483-5111.

For additional information about the NEEMO project on the Internet,
visit:



http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/training/neemo/neemo7/ For
additional information about
Aquarius on the Internet, visit:



http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius/


-end-



Note: To protect against computer viruses, e-mail programs may prevent
sending or receiving certain types of file attachments.  Check your
e-mail security settings to determine how attachments are handled.