When chronic pain flares, the trip from your door to the doctor’s office can seem as difficult as getting from Earth to Mars. The same could be said for the challenge faced by an elderly grandparent going to post-surgery checkups or the frequent office visits required for conditions such as diabetes. At times like these, a spacesuit could come in handy.
When astronauts go on spacewalks, their spacesuits contain numerous sensors that monitor body temperature, heart rate, how much they sweat, and more. That data is automatically sent to NASA and distributed to the flight surgeon, biomedical engineers, and others. The ground-based crew uses that information to guide its support efforts – maybe a reminder to drink some water to avoid dehydration or take a short break to lower heart rate. The same remote health monitoring is now used on this planet in a system called Ejenta.