France performed the first weightless surgery

A group of French doctors are preparing to perform the first operation on people in weightless condition, on a specially designed aircraft. They hope the experiment will be the first step towards performing surgery in the universe.

Doctors will remove a healthy tumor from a volunteer's arm when the aircraft performs a series of acrobatics to create weightlessness. The surgeons work on either side of the plane while the patient is kept in a plastic tent. Special medical devices will be attached to magnets to lay firmly on the metal surgical table.

During a 3-hour flight in southwestern France, the specially designed Airbus A 300 Zero-G will perform parabolic shots to create weight loss. The surgery was performed during the 20-second intervals of those weightless episodes.

Both patients and medical professionals have been trained to adapt to this situation in machines similar to those used by astronauts.

This is the first time such a surgery has been tested on humans. It is part of a long-term project to study the possibility of performing surgeries in long-term space flights, using robots on space ships, through instructions from doctors from the ground.

Some pictures prepared for an operation on a special Airbus plane.
(Photo: esa.int)

T. An