Some information on the medical training cosmonauts receive for an ISS stay, from Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №719:
31/7/2008/12:30 – ISS commander and military pilot Sergei Volkov was trained for a new profession as the head physician
Sergei Volkov – ISS-17 commander and Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian Federation VVS (Air Force) – has for some time been trained for a new profession as the head physician of the Station. The more so because today in orbit is medical day. The official representative of TsUP (Moscow Mission Control Center), Valerii Lyndin, said, “Today the physicians are evaluating the physical fitness level of the of Russian cosmonauts on the treadmill, and Volkov is still developing critical skills for the medical operations.”
“Exercises are conducted with the cosmonaut on working with the onboard American medical equipment of which there is a lot onboard the Station,” explained Irina Alferova, the head of the TsUP Medical Group. According to her, NASA assigns a specialist in each expedition to be responsible for medicine and train them to use onboard equipment and to render aid to associates aboard. If there is a doctor in the composition of the crew – as there was, for example, in ISS-15, where Oleg Kotov had medical qualifications – that question is solved. But if the ISS crew only comprises pilots and engineers, then one of them is selected, who will, during the entire flight, fulfill the function of head physician and will periodically refresh his skills by training with the medical equipment.
Several times during the flight, training is conducted aboard to deal with a non-standard medical situation, which includes the additional training of crew for the use of equipment for the rendering of first aid. The NASA specialists assign to the cosmonauts a specific situation – for example, to remove a mote from the eye of an associate or to dress a wound – and they perform the function of physicians, using the multifunctional medical equipment existing onboard the ISS. “Through the Russian program we do not carry out such training, since we consider that our cosmonauts without this are wonderfully prepared and can render each other practical assistance,” emphasized Alferova.
“Before the flight, all Russian cosmonauts during the year pass a special course on medicine and obtain knowledge and habits, which correspond to a unfinished higher medical education.” Onboard the ISS there is all that is necessary for the rendering of first aid. Cosmonauts can give each other an electrocardiogram, take a blood analysis, or perform intravenous infusion. On the sudden stopping of heart of one of the crew members, their partner can use a defibrilator, which is located on the Station in a special medical case. There is on the ISS dentistry equipment, which includes the necessary tool for the treatment and the removal of teeth. “Truthfully, in the entire time of the operation of the Station, the dental tools have so far been not required, since before the flight the cosmonauts treat their teeth with a special composition of fluorine.”
“Can people live on Mars?”, RIA Novosti, 25/7. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will carry some Russian equipment, the Russian Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, or DAN. On a side note, when the New Horizons space probe reaches Pluto, NASA will have visited every planet in the solar system! Russia, in contrast, hasn’t done anything in unmanned spaceflight since the failed Mars-96 launch in 1996.
Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev declared 2011 the “Year of Russian Cosmonautics”. He could back that up with some funding for a manned Russian Mars mission! (Wishful thinking…)
