Lost in Space

"When people go up into space, many will immediately get space sickness," says Dr. Victor Schneider, research medical officer for NASA's Biomedical Research and Countermeasures Program. While a few astronauts are apparently immune, most can experience symptoms ranging from mild headaches to vertigo and nausea. In extreme cases prolonged vomiting can make an astronaut dehydrated and malnourished.

Before blasting off for space, astronauts try to acclimate their bodies to space by riding the "vomit comet" - a KC-135 airplane that flies parabolic arcs to create short periods of weightlessness

Fortunately, the brain quickly adapts. It learns to trust the eyes and reprograms signals from the vestibular system to reconcile the mismatch. "Space sickness relieves itself after about 3 days, although individual astronauts and cosmonauts may have a relapse at any time during their mission," Schneider says.

Indeed, space sickness is capricious - when it will happen and who will get it can be hard to predict. Some astronauts who show an exceptional tolerance to motion sickness when flying jets suffer the worst symptoms upon arriving in space. "This occurs on Earth as well," adds Schneider. "For example, gymnasts who perform acrobatics and do not get motion sick may get sick on a roller coaster or in the back seat of a moving car."

Figuring out how to prevent space sickness - and how to treat it when it happens - is a high priority for NASA. For that reason, in 1997, NASA helped establish the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) where researchers study how humans adapt to weightlessness and develop "countermeasures" against maladies like space sickness.

Much of the NSBRI's research is conducted on Earth and can directly benefit millions of patients that never leave our planet. For example, an estimated two million American adults suffer chronic impairment from dizziness or difficulty with balance. And nearly one quarter of all emergency room visits include a complaint of dizziness. Figuring out why we're mixed up and lost in space can have some down-to-Earth benefits!