NASA is looking at taking a tiny robot developed in Lincoln into space. The robot is called MIRA, short for miniaturized in vivo robotic assistance. It’s a small robot that can be used for surgery in space. It was invented by a professor at UNL and worked on through his company Virtual Incision. It can be inserted through a small incision and lets surgeons work remotely. If an astronaut has a ruptured appendix while on the space station, it would allow a someone on earth to control it and do surgery.
They can’t take someone who needs surgery up to the space station, so they’ll be testing it by making it do tasks that would be similar using rubber bands and metal rings. I’m no rocket scientist, but what about sending up a copy of the game “Operation” and see it does on that. If it can pull the funny bone out without setting off the buzzer, I think we’ll have the technology we need in for this job.