Hyperbaric in space, continued

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy continues its cameo role in ABC's science fiction drama Defying Gravity. In last night's episode, as well as the two preceding, HBOT gets a brief mention for its role in wound care. A crew member loses a thumb in a zero-gravity accident and has it reattached. Hyperbaric treatment speeds recovery so she can pilot the Venus lander with all ten digits. In 2053, that's quicker than growing a new thumb.

HBOT: Outerwear For The New Millenium?

O2.0 congratulates Flagsuit LLC for winning the 2009 NewSpace Business Plan Competition, with extra thanks for providing a not-so-sci-fi footnote to last week's HBOT In Space story. Sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation and the Heinlein Trust (Stranger in a Strange Land, anyone?), the NewSpace competition awards $5,000 and access to the investment community. What caught our eye was Flagsuit's focus on private spaceflight and its plan to commercialize

a hyperbaric (pressurized) suit with excellent mobility at a price that enables affordable spacesuits. The same product will fill a nonspace consumer need for a mobile chamber for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, creating a convenient way for people to treat and prevent disease.

Now that would be a portable chamber! Godspeed, Peter K. Homer.

HBOT In Space

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has made it into space, at least in a fictional sense. In the second episode of the new ABC space thriller, Defying Gravity, the crew of the Antaries tests a special space suit by pumping the the internal pressure up to a whopping five atmospheres to check for leaks. They do this with an astronaut inside the suit, so the inevitable leak leads to a life-threatening drop in pressure.

Decompression sickness ensues. The quick-thinking crew (there's no other kind on TV) calls for "the hyperbaric chamber." Something like a large Ziploc bag is produced. Fifty years from now chambers will apparently be very portable.



You'll have to watch to learn how it all works out. Remarkable in that the science is roughly accurate and that the scriptwriters felt they could include the hyperbaric chamber without getting the audience totally lost.