The use of lasers in eye surgery has become normal and now a space technology has become part of the surgical instruments. It’s an instrument that can follow the patient’s eye movements without interfering with the work of the surgeon and consequently direct with extreme precision the laser scalpel.
When we fix our gaze on one point our eyes automatically compensate for our head movements. In this way, we keep on seeing clearly even while we’re moving. This is done thanks to the information processed by our brain coming from our inner ear, the same organ that gives us a sense of balance.
The inner ear works thanks to the force of gravity so in space astronauts can no longer rely on it. To investigate this problem, several years ago a team led by Professor Andrew Clarke designed for DLR, the German space agency, a series of experiments to measure the astronauts eye movements on the International Space Station.
The Eye Tracking Device (ETD) is a helmet that contains electronic systems that provide data to processors similar to those used in cameras. It’s been used to measure comprehensively the eye movements of the the people who wear it and optionally the movements of their head.
The first test started about ten years ago and went on for more than four years. Among the guinea pigs there was the German astronaut Thomas Reiter during his mission, called Astrolab, on the International Space Station in 2006.
The results of the experiments showed that both the sense of balance and the automatic control of the eye movements are affected by the absence of gravity. The effects are such that at the end of a space mission astronauts take several days if not weeks to get back to normal.
The engineers who developed the ETD realized that an instrument of this type could have useful applications on Earth. New versions have been developed to be used by surgeons in eye surgery with the use of lasers but also for other types of research. It’s another case in which a technology developed for a space research was applied in a useful manner on Earth.
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