Heart Attacks in Space – Nautilus

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HEART attacks occur in space. And space agencies have a panoply of contorting protocols that astronauts can use when such emergencies occur among the stars.

NASA, for example, recommends that the international space station rescuers play what is called the “tip method”. It was at this point that the person making RCR on a space traveler benefiting from cardiac arrest made a hand on the chest and pressed feet against an internal part of the spaceship to generate sufficiently robust chest compressions. The other methods include the reverse hug of the bear and the Russomano Evetts, where the rescuers wrap the arms or legs respectively, around the torso of the hit to compress their chest.

But now there may be a better way to treat heart attacks in space under microgravity: it involves a piston.

A team of scientists and clinicians from various French institutions reported the new method in a study published last year in the journal Resuscitation, And will present their conclusions at the Congress of the European Cardiology Society which takes place in Spain this weekend. The team tested three automatic thoracic compression instruments on a RCR model during a parabolic airplane flight which simulates microgravity conditions similar to those felt by space travelers. They found that that in particular, a standard piston device to perform thoracic compressions, could provide sufficient force to reach an optimal depth of about 2 inches in a person’s chest.

The device could be a critical tool to include first aid kits made on cosmic trips. “It will be up to each space agency, which he wishes to include automatic thoracic compression devices in their emergency medical kit,” said Nathan Reynette, cardiologist at the University of Lorraine, in a press release. “We know that they have other considerations beyond efficiency, such as weight and space constraints.”

Although most astronauts are young and in shape, and therefore the risk of cardiac arrest in space is relatively low, this type of foresight can become more and more necessary with the rise of space tourism and longer space missions, says Reynette.

No one wants his first trip to the cosmos – or his second or third – to be their last.

Image of lead: Intueri / Shutterstock

• Bob Grant

  Published on August 28, 2025

  Bob Grant is the editor -in -chief of Nautilus.