Thomas Moore<\/a>, science correspondent<\/p>\nNever has 250 miles been so far from home.<\/p>\n
That’s the distance above the Earth that the International Space Station (ISS) orbits. But when one of the crew needs a medical evacuation it’s painfully remote.<\/p>\n
NASA won’t say which of the four astronauts leaving the ISS late tonight has a “medical concern”, nor what the problem is, because of confidentiality.<\/p>\n
But Jared Isaacman, the new NASA chief, ordered the return because the space station doesn’t have the diagnostic capability or treatment available for the mystery condition.<\/p>\n
It’s remarkable that this is the first evacuation. There have been more than 280 astronauts on the ISS since the first crew arrived in November 2000.<\/p>\n
Statistically, there should be a serious medical problem requiring an early return to Earth every three years.<\/p>\n
But, up to now, the astronauts themselves, backed up by a flight surgeon and other medics on the ground, have been able to deal with all medical incidents in orbit.<\/p>\n
That included a blood clot in the jugular vein of an unnamed astronaut a few years ago. They had to ration the supply of blood thinners, injecting a slightly lower dose than normal, until a cargo spaceship brought new stocks 43 days later.<\/p>\n
The ISS has a mini-pharmacy of more than 190 drugs and medical equipment including an ultra-sound machine, defibrillator and an intravenous therapy kit.<\/p>\n
It’s enough for the most medical problems in astronauts who are carefully screened for physical and mental fitness before they launch.<\/p>\n
But the evacuation highlights the risks as astronauts begin a new era of space exploration. What happens if there’s a medical incident on the moon, or on a spaceship to Mars?<\/p>\n
It’s not like the crew can count on “Bones” McCoy, the doctor in Star Trek, with his fancy diagnostic wand and miraculous surgical skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Analysis: Evacuation highlights risks as astronauts begin a new era of space exploration By Thomas Moore, science correspondent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-369529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}