NASA 'holoports' a doctor on Earth to ISS in first such achievement

We've seen it in movies. The protagonist is travelling in a spacecraft. A few beeps later, he receives a sophisticated telephone call. In other words, the person wanting to connect with our hero appears almost in flesh. A projection of the caller appears in thin air and both of them carry out conversation as if they would be talking in real life.

NASA made this translate into reality as it 'holoported' a surgeon to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA flight surgeon Josef Schmid conversed with astronauts as a virtual presence in real time. NASA made this information public last week. The actual holoportation took place in October 2021.

"This is [a] completely new manner of human communication across vast distances," says Schmid, as quoted by NASA. 

"It is a brand-new way of human exploration, where our human entity is able to travel off the planet."

"NASA is demonstrating this new form of communication as a precursor for more extensive use on future missions. Plans are to use this next with two-way communication, where people on Earth are holoported to space and astronauts are placed back on earth," said the information on the NASA website.

The surgeon was holoported to the ISS using Microsoft Hololens technology.

There appears to be an exciting way ahead for such technology. Imagine something going wrong in a spacecraft millions of miles away from Earth. The best instructor or the best expert can jump into the spacecraft using holoportation and help the astronauts resolve the issue.