Space Sickness

Anywhere between 60 and 80 percent of astronauts develop space sickness in the first few days after a launch source.

Space sickness. It is the opposite of terrestrial motion sickness since it occurs when the environment and the person appear visually to be in motion relative to one another even though there is no corresponding sensation of bodily movement originating from the vestibular system. While a few astronauts are apparently immune most can experience symptoms ranging from mild headaches to vertigo and nausea. Dubious claims aside there s also a fundamental problem with the idea of sickness from space. Most obviously the physically extreme act of launching off earth in a rocket can cause motion sickness and can affect spatial orientation and coordination.

Symptoms resemble those associated with motion sickness here on earth and include headaches vertigo nausea and in extreme cases extended bouts of vomiting. Schirra and crewmates donn eisele and walter cunningham suffered flu like symptoms which many now believe were due to space sickness. In many ways space sickness was the deep space equivalent to sea sickness. Pathogenic microbes and viruses are dependent on an intimate understanding of the biology they disrupt.

Astronaut walter schirra during the 11 day apollo 7 flight in october 1968. It manifests clinically with symptoms similar to other forms of motion sickness such as malaise fatigue loss of appetite nausea and vomiting and is a part of a larger constellation of symptoms known as space adaptation syndrome which also includes facial stuffiness from headward shifts of fluids headaches and back pain 1. Space adaptation syndrome or space sickness is a condition experienced by as many as half of all space travelers during their adaptation to weightlessness once in orbit. Space sickness was often brought on by turbulence on a ship or inertial dampeners being out of alignment and was especially strong if a ship lacked artificial gravity.

Space sickness was a condition caused by being off of a planet s surface. It more closely describes the problem because it is an. Once in space changes in stress hormone. Its symptoms included nausea dizziness and disorientation.

Nasa uses the term space adaptation syndrome instead of space sickness. The game plan of viruses is to commandeer cellular machinery to make copies of themselves. Vertigo nausea headaches and in some cases vomiting can strike a new arrival to space. Space sickness is nausea and disorientation felt by many astronauts.

Space motion sickness is experienced by 60 to 80 of space travelers during their first 2 to 3 days in microgravity. Treatment with medications during the early flight days of a space mission is common though nasa continues.