Learn about one of the very first telemedicine efforts, undertaken in 1975 by NASA, the Indian Health Service, local Alaska Native health workers, and a division of the National Library of Medicine. 

"NASA’s ATS health trials positioned rural Alaska as an experimental space for testing applications of satellite telecommunications that could also be used to improve healthcare in the global South. In this context, Alaska could stand in for other developing regions where American technical expertise might become valuable. But Alaska Native political leaders and indigenous community health aides conceived the ATS-1 and ATS-6 as tools that could improve Alaska Native health without sacrificing the hard-won autonomy of their communities. These groups were motivated, respectively, by the desire to bring satellite technologies into their regions and the hope of integrating these technologies into their own local healthcare practices."