Medtronic’s Tiny Micra Pacemaker Going on a Space Flight These days astronauts are some of the healthiest and physically robust individuals that NASA can get a hold of. But one day we may see all kinds of people Going to space, even those with heart conditions. Shelbi Klings****, a Nebraska high school student had the idea to test whether an existing Pacemaker is able to handle the vibrations, radiation, and weightlessness of Space to get a sense of*whether pacemakers have a future in the final frontier.
Medtronic‘s Micra Pacemaker is so small that it*fits inside the heart and is delivered in a minimally invasive fashion. Conveniently, it is also small e**ugh to fit inside a 4 cm square box that’s a standard size of the Cubes in Space project. Cubes in Space relies on NASA sounding rockets to deliver a bunch of small high school experiments into Space for a few minutes, but*without putting them into orbit. The rocket flies in a parabolic trajectory and the Flight lasts only about ten minutes. Nevertheless, this is long e**ugh, and the Flight is traumatic e**ugh, to get a pretty good idea of the pacemaker’s performance.
The Flight is scheduled for Thursday, June 22 and can be seen live at this link. We wish the Micra a safe Flight and hoping to hear that it will have worked just fine throughout the journey, as it will keep open the possibility of visits to Space for a lot of people.