Move over “Bones” McCoy. Future voyages of the starship Enterprise just might include astro surgery as this dynamic discipline jumps from the pages of fiction to reality.

A team of biomedical engineering researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Louisville are developing surgical tools that could be used for future expeditionary spaceflights to the moon, an asteroid or Mars.

“In deep space, surgical procedures will be severely complicated by absence of gravity, where it becomes difficult to prevent cabin contamination from blood and body fluids,” said James Antaki, a professor of biomedical engineering at CMU.

To address these challenges of surgical care in zero gravity, Antaki along with George M. Pantalos, a professor of surgery and bioengineering at the University of Louisville, and CMU researchers James E. Burgess and Jennifer A. Hayden are developing a watertight surgery system to isolate the wound and control bleeding by creating a pressurized aqueous environment within the surgical field.