NASA Begins Work on a Robotic Therapist for Astronauts

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NASA has begun work on a four-year, $1.74 million project designed to help counsel depressed astronauts in space. The project, dubbed the Virtual Space Station, is being readied in Boston. The VSS is supposed to independently create a program that will offer astronauts advice based on their typed insecurities. AP writer Jay Lindsay says it is nothing at all like HAL 9000.

How it works: Astronauts type in their various psychological problems into a console, which leads a pre-recorded video therapist to offer up a variety of solutions. The robot therapist "helps astronauts identify reasons for their depression. Then the program helps them make a plan to fight the depression."

The Virtual Space Station is being tested on civilians and it’s designers hope that it will one day cross party lines and be used by astronauts and non-astronauts alike. Researchers involved with the project offer no word on how normalized conventions of doctor/patient privacy will be affected by the project.