From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.science
Subject: Re: Space sickness
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 04:58:14 GMT

In article <7dgplr$bmu$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,  <itaytslin@hhcc.com> wrote:
>> Not a great extra expense; it's people who *are* debilitated by space
>> sickness who are a minority, not those who aren't.
>
>Everyone who goes into space, first must ride weightless parabolas aboard NASA
>"vomit comet" (or a similar aircraft in Russia). Those who can not "stand"
>zero-g are weeded out at that step.

Nope.  In some ways it would be convenient if that worked, but it doesn't.
Practically everybody gets sick on the vomit comet, even people who aren't
bothered at all in space.  Alternating back and forth between free fall
and 2-3G is much more nauseating than constant free fall.

NASA would quite like to have a way to find out who'll get sick and who
won't, because particularly on the short shuttle flights, spacesickness
cuts in-orbit productivity significantly.  No usable screening method has
ever been found.  Spacesickness doesn't correlate well with any form of
Earthbound motion sickness, or indeed with anything else anybody has
thought of, last I heard.
--
The good old days                   |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
weren't.                            |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.science
Subject: Re: Space sickness
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 00:11:09 GMT

In article <ant3023091cbM+4%@gnelson.demon.co.uk>,
Graham Nelson  <graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> NASA would quite like to have a way to find out who'll get sick and who
>> won't...
>
>Some Apollo astronauts (David Scott, for instance) believed that
>carrying out aerobatics in the run-up to launching helped a little,
>breaking their ear-and-stomach in, so to speak.  Is that theory
>now discredited?

Last I heard, it still seems to be true that doing aerobatics shortly
before launch helps some.  However, this doesn't tell you who will get
sick and who won't -- it just generally improves the odds a bit.

>It's also been suggested that subsequent flights are easier to
>adapt to than one's first flight.  Is this now believed to be so?
>Or is it just that those who have serious spacesickness are
>simply not invited to fly again?

Spacesickness has long been bad for your career as an astronaut.  (Indeed,
the incidence of mild spacesickness has been badly under-reported from the
beginning, for exactly that reason.)

It definitely remains possible to get sick on your second flight.  I
hadn't heard that the chances were reduced, but it could be.  Might just
be knowing what mistakes not to make, though.
--
The good old days                   |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
weren't.                            |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)