subject: Earth Orbit And Dental Magic [print this page] As part of the first manned space flights during the Skylab operations during the seventies the astronauts who were sent into earth orbit were accompanied by modern dental equipment.
The astronauts who joined the Skylab space missions needed to have a means for dental care in space and so the military dentists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA came up with a dental component for the in flight medical support system or IMSS.
The three Skylab missions where this dental equipment was used lasted from 28 to 56 days each and has employed a three man crew.
The dental equipment was intended to have the purpose of treating any ailments that could be dealt with on an outpatient basis according to one military dentist.
But still the equipment should not be compared with any do it yourself kit or buddy kit kind of solution.
Risks for any dental mishaps only amount to one percent and this figure became the focus of the treatment concepts developed for each of the flights that lasted for 28 days at a time with three man crews.
The onset of pulpitis or periodontal abscess can lead to the inefficiency of one astronaut and these are examples of the dental problems which carry a one percent risk.
Astronauts can equally face less problematic situations when it comes to dental mishaps accumulating total risks of five percent.
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. Even in zero gravity an astronaut can mix the material.
In order to make sure that the equipment will indeed provide the necessary dental assistance for the astronauts much testing was done and to ensure that the crew knows how to properly use the equipment they were given intensive training sessions that went on for two days.
Flight crews gained basic procedural knowledge from the training provided by NASA as the sessions only considered problems that are not more complicated than tooth removal.
Integrated dental treatment guides will be made available in the space craft itself including step by step procedure instructions and even images of the oral structure of each crew member sourced from personal radiographs.
A dentist is on standby in mission control in order to provide assistance to those in flight using materials that include personal oral casts, panoramic radiographs, and dental records for each crew member.
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.
It is only fair to say that the availability of such dental equipment especially designed for space expeditions and accompanying training programs are not enough for some people to have complete faith in the idea of non dentists performing procedures.
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.
