To bridge that gap, NASA is partnering with Google to test an A.I. medical assistant for long-duration missions. Known as the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA), the multi-modal tool is designed to diagnose conditions, analyze symptoms and recommend treatments when contact with Earth-based medical experts isn’t possible.

The tool, which uses Google Cloud’s Vertex AI environment and a mixture of open-source large language models (LLMs), is specifically tailored to the medical challenges of long-distance space travel.

When humans travel far from Earth, keeping them healthy becomes a much tougher job. On the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts can easily talk to doctors on Earth, get regular deliveries of medicines,