Long duration space missions are becoming highly probable, and with them arise new challenges. Maintaining the long term health of astronauts and developing the appropriate equipment for advanced medical interventions suitable for space becomes incredibly important. Surgical interventions especially are a problematic scene given the complexity and size of the required equipment for general anesthesia. As a result, creating advanced inhalational anesthetic devices that are small and light weight is needed for these long duration space missions. The past decade has brought a host of advances that would allow the development of smarter, smaller, lighter, and more efficient machines. These include pharmacokinetic and pharmaco-dynamic models to create feedback delivery systems, better sensing technologies to meter precise gas delivery, and closed breathing circuits that conserve anesthetic agents. However, despite these advances, anesthetic machines and devices still remain incredibly heavy and bulky, and ill-suited for space travel. A brief summary of technological advances will be discussed as well as preliminary results in measuring the concentration of volatile anesthetics using convective heat transfer principles
