NASA and Google want to keep astronauts healthy with AI

If all goes to plan, NASA astronauts will soon start putting on some serious mileage in space. But when they’re millions of miles away—Mars is ~200-million miles from Earth—they can’t just make like E.T. and phone home for a doctor’s appointment.

Enter the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA), a new AI medical assistant from NASA and Google that’s trained to diagnose and treat astronauts when no doctor is available, or when communications to Earth are blacked out. Early tests of basic scenarios show CMO-DA can accurately diagnose health issues and form a proper treatment plan 74–88% of the time.

Why it matters

The human body and space go together about as well as orange juice and toothpaste, with several major health risks associated with deep-space missions. NASA bundles them into a tidy acronym called RIDGE:

• Radiation in outer space is far harsher than low-Earth orbit, significantly upping cancer and cardiovascular risks.
• Isolation can mess with mental health (and circadian rhythms) over months or years.
• Distance means slow communication to Earth—no instant second opinion from Houston.
• Gravity changes can cause bone loss, blood pressure shifts, and dehydration.
• Hostile/closed environments can alter immune systems, increasing autoimmune risk.

Looking ahead…NASA has a stated goal of placing the first humans on Mars as early as the 2030s, after first setting up a long-term presence on the Moon via the ongoing Artemis program.