Oxygen Implant- could it save an Astronaut?

[jfull]

I'm gonna start this off by saying that the implanted device I am proposing is just hypothetical. I really have no idea if any research has been done into something like it.

Anywhere beyond our home bubble of oxygen is hostile to human life. Space suits help, but if we continue to explore the solar system, then it is only a matter of time before an astronaut experiences a catastrophic loss of suit pressure. But is there a way to keep an astronaut alive (at least temporarily) after that has happened?

Imagine a device implanted in the astronaut's lung or otherwise connected to their bloodstream. It would have its own connection to the suit's oxygen supply and would be able to infuse the oxygen directly into the astronaut's blood in the event the suit lost pressure.

What I am asking is how long and how well an astronaut would be able to survive using this sort of device. The way I see I it, there are 3 main situations to consider.

1. In vacuum, either in orbit or on an airless body:

As I understand it, exposure to vacuum isn't quite as dangerous as movies and other media depict it. You don't explode or instantly freeze. In fact, it would take a very long time for you to freeze because there's no matter to carry away your heat into space. What would happen is that your blood would start boiling and blood vessels near your skin would start to burst. Basically, it would be highly destructive to your body, but if you still had oxygen reaching your brain, could you save yourself, or at least stay conscious long enough to be saved by other astronauts.

2. Mars:

The pressure of the atmosphere is incredibly thin, would it really be much different from exposure to vacuum? The presence of atmosphere might actually make it worse, causing you to lose heat faster than you would in vacuum.

3. Titan (a bit far fetched, but still interesting to consider):

Here, atmospheric pressure isn't really the dangerous factor, and all you'd need to consider is how long you would last if exposed to the super low temperature and possibly toxic gasses.

[xenomorph555]

There have been over 600 eva's, there is nothing to worry about.

[shynung]

There have been over 600 eva's, there is nothing to worry about.

EVAs themselves are already a risky business. There was a water leak on an ISS astronaut's helmet recently, if I recall correctly, and if not aborted quickly, the water could have drowned him. Jfull's concern is not unreasonable; one way or another, there will be some catastrophic suit failure accidents.

Though I have little idea about how the human body would react to such an occurrence, I believe if the body orifices (mouth, nose, etc.) are protected, the astronaut has a fair chance of survival; skin is fairly gas-tight by itself, and there's plenty of body fat to reduce heat loss.

Edited July 5, 2014 by shynung

[jfull]

Yeah, but almost all of those were in orbit. On the moon or on Mars, an Astronaut could fall and puncture their suit on a rock.

I'm not saying there's a huge risk of this happening, only that it COULD happen. And if we someday make many missions to other planets, then eventually it will happen, no matter the tiny chance.

[softweir]

The main problem with vacuum exposure is that oxygen diffuses out of the blood and into the vacuum in the lungs, completely deoxygenating the blood. This process is so fast that any oxygen implant would be unable to compete! Unfortunately, there is no way to simply squirt oxygen into the lungs: if you were putting enough oxygen in to maintain blood saturations then the internal pressure in the lungs would be high enough to rupture them, or at least to cause all that oxygen to fore its way out through the airways, no matter how hard the astronaut tried to hold their breath.

So, in order to be useful, such an implant would have to prevent blood-flow through the lungs, which requires a massive rerouting of blood. There is no convenient way to do this, because the implant would have to be plumbed into too many large veins and arteries - surgeons would need to add many, many branched tubes inside a chest which has very little spare space anyway. The chances that all this equipment would cause injurious complications when not in use would be extremely high!

One could prevent brain-death by installing a much smaller implant which feeds oxygenated blood through a loop that only supplies the brain. This is much less implausible - you only have to interrupt the 2 jugular veins and the 2 carotid arteries. This system would NOT enable a user to save themselves, because it would leave the rest of the nervous system (spinal cord and peripheral nerves) without oxygen, causing complete paralysis in seconds. Given that, it would be humane to add a powerful anaesthetic as well as the oxygen - this would have the added benefit of reducing the brain's oxygen requirement, which would extend the useful operating period of the device.

Having said all that, I don't see this sort of thing being possible in the near future.

[Scotius]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit

This might partially solve the problem. In this project helmet is the only pressurised part of the suit. This should allow for increased protection, since it's already sturdiest part.

[Dreadthrone]

the total time answer would be..... around zero seconds... face it you NEED a suit to survive in space or you freeze to death.... and if you had an implant for that you would be blasted to death by radiation... maybe if you had an implant for that you could survive quite a while in space....

i don't think i would want to get three giant implants...

after all you can let the drones do all the work! (and save a little money while your at it!)

and to be honest... evas aren't NEARLY as cool as they are in ksp:( you don't really get much more science and its mainly a first time only thing.. plus if you plant a flag on mars that would go to show just how good your space program is...

you cant get better rockets by climbing mountains and looking at dunes....

i think robots are the only logical step ( HUMANS ARE OVERRATED!) you can plant all your flags with a rover! plus you don't have to pay the giganormus money for life support..

after all.. once a flag is placed on some other planet... nobody cares if you plant another and people try to go intersteller! (technology grows because a thing is only interesting once!)

i think by the point we go interstellar there would be better options for life support. (eat an apple and never need to breath again!)

i think in theory it COULD save an few peeps but i doubt we will need them

before we have the magic never breath again apples...

and if your veins internally combust i don't think a living brain will save you...

mars is cold titan could be nasty but the worst possible place to be would be drifting away from a space station at 20mps and not having any rcs because a malfunctioning monitor said you had twice as much fuel as you really do... there is not much o2 can do for you at that point but give you a slower more painful death....

and drones don't have parents...

i might have an obsession with drones

[SuperFastJellyfish]

the total time answer would be...

Your period to word ratio is hurting my brain. No one man needs that many ellipses or variations thereof!

[Kinglet]

EVAs themselves are already a risky business. There was a water leak on an ISS astronaut's helmet recently, if I recall correctly, and if not aborted quickly, the water could have drowned him.

It's sad how nasa knew about this problem for many years but still was too lazy to fix it.

[Seret]

It's sad how nasa knew about this problem for many years but still was too lazy to fix it.

Er, that's not really what happened. Spilled water from drinks bags was common inside helmets, but in the incident shynung refers to there was a failure that lead to a large leak. Two separate things. Where you might be getting confused is that the fact that water inside helmets was considered routine led them to not identify the water leak as a problem quickly enough.

[Kinglet]

Er, that's not really what happened. Spilled water from drinks bags was common inside helmets, but in the incident shynung refers to there was a failure that lead to a large leak. Two separate things. Where you might be getting confused is that the fact that water inside helmets was considered routine led them to not identify the water leak as a problem quickly enough.

[KerbMav]

The main problem with vacuum exposure is that oxygen diffuses out of the blood and into the vacuum in the lungs, completely deoxygenating the blood. This process is so fast that any oxygen implant would be unable to compete! Unfortunately, there is no way to simply squirt oxygen into the lungs: if you were putting enough oxygen in to maintain blood saturations then the internal pressure in the lungs would be high enough to rupture them, or at least to cause all that oxygen to fore its way out through the airways, no matter how hard the astronaut tried to hold their breath.

So, in order to be useful, such an implant would have to prevent blood-flow through the lungs, which requires a massive rerouting of blood. There is no convenient way to do this, because the implant would have to be plumbed into too many large veins and arteries - surgeons would need to add many, many branched tubes inside a chest which has very little spare space anyway. The chances that all this equipment would cause injurious complications when not in use would be extremely high!

One could prevent brain-death by installing a much smaller implant which feeds oxygenated blood through a loop that only supplies the brain. This is much less implausible - you only have to interrupt the 2 jugular veins and the 2 carotid arteries. This system would NOT enable a user to save themselves, because it would leave the rest of the nervous system (spinal cord and peripheral nerves) without oxygen, causing complete paralysis in seconds. Given that, it would be humane to add a powerful anaesthetic as well as the oxygen - this would have the added benefit of reducing the brain's oxygen requirement, which would extend the useful operating period of the device.

If I remember my biology lessons in school correctly, then the heart pumps blood through two circuits, the body and the lungs. Rerouting the blood from the lung circuit through this fabled oxygen implant delivers oxygen to the body and protects it from being vented in the lungs.

But all in all this one thing that in movies makes my brain go "Yeah, ok, get on with the story".

[Space Viking]

So, in order to be useful, such an implant would have to prevent blood-flow through the lungs, which requires a massive rerouting of blood. There is no convenient way to do this, because the implant would have to be plumbed into too many large veins and arteries - surgeons would need to add many, many branched tubes inside a chest which has very little spare space anyway. The chances that all this equipment would cause injurious complications when not in use would be extremely high!

Interesting, but I do have one question though: Just like KerbMav reasoned, even though the lungs would deoxygenate the circulating blood during vacuum exposure, would that really matter if an oxygenation implant was attached ahead at the artery? The blood that passes through the vein (and in this context, also the lungs) has already been deoxygenated through natural body functions, so it would seem logical no major rerouting of the bloodflow would be necessary.

Of course, I wouldn't imply it's a practical application.

It's sad how nasa knew about this problem for many years but still was too lazy to fix it.

Technically, there was nothing to fix. The referred suit was outdated and used beyond its designated design specifications, as it was meant for Space Shuttle missions associated with routine maintenance back on Earth. It would seem to have been a better idea allocating some resources from that, what is in my opinion, overrated Space Shuttle program and use it for additional R&D on an improve suit design.

[Rickenbacker]

Such an implant would do nothing. At such low pressures, you'd pass out from oxygen deprivation in 5-10 seconds, even if you were breathing 100% oxygen, and I assume this would work the same.

[K^2]

Even if you deliver oxygen directly to the blood stream, you'll be loosing it at too fast a rate through your lungs. Attempting to hold breath would only cause lung damage.