With the emergence of long-duration space travel, space exploration missions pose a major concern due to the heightened risk of medical emergencies, such as sudden cardiac arrest. While several cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) methods have been proposed for human spaceflight, their reliability and effectiveness remain uncertain, as these methods lack systematic evaluation through physiological metrics. To address this gap, a high-fidelity CPR simulator was developed to simulate blood circulation and deliver real-time hemodynamic feedback. Herein, we show that in normogravity, the CPR simulator generates compression-decompression waveforms that align with published animal and test bench studies. As an exploratory comparison, we also report relative differences in hemodynamic pressure observed between normogravity and hypogravity conditions. The findings highlight that internal physiological responses are critical for evaluating CPR effectiveness in hypogravity, with the CPR simulator serving as a plausible tool. The current study represents an initial step toward the validation of a gold standard CPR protocol and may contribute to the complex health challenges surrounding long-duration spaceflight.
Lord et al. (Wed,) studied this question.