Harnessed to the walls, their surgical tools held down with magnets, a team of French doctors will attempt the first human operation in zero-gravity on Wednesday. It will serve as a test for performing surgery in space.

The aircraft used is the Zero-G, a plane designed and built by Europe to simulate gravity-free conditions. A specially-adapted Airbus A300 operated out of Bordeaux, flies in a series of roller-coaster like parabolas, creating between 20 and 22 seconds of weightlessness at the top of the curve, a process repeated around 30 times for a 3-hour flight.

Working inside a custom-made operating block, three surgeons, backed by two anaesthetists and a team of army parachutists, will remove a fatty tumour from the forearm of an intrepid volunteer over the course of a three-hour flight. The operation is part of a project to develop surgical robots in space that are guided via satellite by Earth-based doctors. The project is on course for completion in 2007, backed by the European Space Agency (ESA). Via NewScientistSpace