Space Medicine GPT

During exploration missions, human crewmembers will be away from Earth for extended periods of time. As the distance from Earth increases, real-time communication with flight surgeons and expert medical consultants located in Mission Control will no longer be possible. The response to medical problems that might arise on exploration missions must be crew-based rather than ground-based. Instead of having expert medical consultation available via communications links to Mission Control, such expertise will need to reside on the spacecraft. This paradigm shift has been labeled as Earth Independent Medical Operations or EIMO. The ideal solution to this problem is to create a tool that replaces the ground-based medical expertise that is currently available to crews in low earth orbit and locates it onboard. This tool must possess the same information base as a consultant on the ground, be immediately responsive, function without internet, and be capable of communicating with the crew via keyboard, text or voice. The crew must be able to interact with this client in exactly the same way that they would interact with a flight surgeon in Mission Control. We propose that building a Large Language Model (LLM) GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) Knowledge Base, trained with information from large medical databases, including additional information derived from space medicine libraries, may be an innovative, and feasible tool for spaceflight Clinical Decision Support. We plan to select an earth-based medical knowledge base and augment it with all relevant medical information provided by our space medicine expert consultant, Dr. David Hilmers. Thus, our intelligent medical agent will not only have the benefit of thousands, if not millions of human datasets informing clinical decision support, it will also have a more extensive advisory capability by utilizing true spaceflight medical risk references and procedural guidance.

S-Med GPT could be used for medical capability on Gateway missions. S-Med GPT could be used for Artemis missions autonomous medical capability. S-Med GPT could be used for Mars mission autonomous medical capability.

S-Med GPT will be of interest to DoD and specific military branches for combat medics uses. S-Med GPT could be used in Telemedicine applications where a live doctor is not immediately available.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.