Aerospace medicine center eyed in Phl

MANILA, Philippines - The country may soon have an aerospace medicine center, which would also be the first in Southeast Asia.

The plan to build the country’s first aerospace medicine center was announced during the 1st National Technology Forum on Aerospace Medicine and Biology with the theme  “Exploring the Frontiers of Aerospace Medicine for the Philippines” at the Enrique Garcia Hall of the Lung Center of the Philippines on Friday.

The proposed Aerodome would be built inside the Lung Center complex.

The Lung Center is taking the lead in the building of the Aerodome as it will be the first to make use of the facility in its bid to be the center of excellence in aviation and travel medicine in the country.

Engineering students of the Technological Institute of the Philippines were tasked to come up with the design of the state-of-the-art facility, as well as the production of the needed equipment.

Sergio Andres Jr., who is in charge of the Lung Center’s Aerospace, Maritime and Travel Medicine Project, said the project includes the establishment of a human centrifuge or g-force simulator, a human gyroscope laboratory, a hyperbaric and a hypobaric chamber, a free fall/microgravity simulator and jet and helicopter crash simulator, among other medical equipment.

The facility will be initially utilized to serve pilots, air and ground crew personnel from the military and civil aviation industry and in basic and applied research in space medicine.

“This is history in the making,” said Andres, a pulmonologist who studied astronautics at the League of New World’s International Space Academy in Merrit Island, Florida.

Andres was also a former senior associate of the Space Studies Institute in the 1980s, which was formerly headed by Gerard O’Neil, a highly respected particle physicist of Princeton University.

During the forum, Thais Russomano of Brazil and Latin America’s first space doctor and founder of the Microgravity Center at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul shared the struggles she faced when she started the first aerospace center in Brazil.

“Don’t aim for something very big in the beginning,” she said.

“Even if you start small, it is still a huge step,” she added, noting that she only started with one room.

“They (first) gave me a three-square meter area and a computer and watched me with curiosity,” she said.

Jose Luis Danguilan, executive director of the Lung Center, said that a P150-million budget had been initially approved by the Department of Health for the Aerodome project.

“That is just for the building,” he said. “We hope to get the support of the private sector for the rest.”

Danguilan said local logistics company Air21 has expressed interest in the project.