subject: Achieving Dental Health [print this page] The astronauts who took part in the 1973 Skylab space flights were given the opportunity to use a variety of advanced dental equipment as they orbited the earth. It was important for the people at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA during the Skylab trials to incorporate dental care in the overall design of their newly developed IMSS or in flight medical support system. The three Skylab missions where this dental equipment was used lasted from 28 to 56 days each and has employed a three man crew.
Having adequate dental equipment was crucial as one military dentist said but the capacity of the machines to treat ailments was limited to conditions that could be treated on an outpatient basis. In the case of such equipment it would be pretty difficult to consider the machines as do it yourself kits. Each of the three man crews involved in space travels for 28 days had a one percent risk for dental problems and ideas on possible treatments resulted from such a statistic. Ineffectiveness on the job due to serious dental problems like pulpitis or periodontal abscess is the main concern when it comes to the risk for possible dental mishaps while in space.
With a five percent risk rating it is more likely for astronauts to experience minor dental problems like chipped teeth. Readers of this article will be informed about the development of the IMSS dental equipment which makes certain tools like forceps, syringes, a periodontal curette, and a Gigli saw available for immediate medical treatment in space. The restorative material needed to be created to fit certain specifications for space travel and so the Air Force den corps came up with a perfect solution. The great thing about this special formula is that mixing in zero gravity is easy.
Before anything else the equipment was subjected to a series of tests and then NASA conducted training programs that taught the astronauts how to use the equipment where both testing and training attempts became successful. This program is primarily directed to implement procedures of a complexity of up to and including tooth removal. The astronauts will be equipped with an integrated and illustrated manual for the dental equipment they will bring along and the manual will not only include guides to procedures but will also have illustrations bearing the oral cavities of each crew member based on earlier radiographs.
There will always be a dentist available in mission control equipped with all the materials that may be needed by the astronauts from oral casts to files containing narrative summaries of all dental procedures done to astronauts since 1966. Space to ground conversation would be used extensively, and no diagnostic or treatment procedures would be instituted unless so directed from the ground by a dental officer.
When it comes to the possibility of having non professionals do the dental procedures in space there is a majority of people involved in the program that still have their contradictions to the matter. But incapacitating dental pain experienced by a crewman aboard the space ship could threaten a space mission costing hundreds of millions of dollars, and could have threatened one of the Skylab missions, a loss that probably could not be accepted up to this decade. He further says that finally, a procedure as complex as tooth removal would be considered only after all other approaches had failed.
