April 22, 2010 • 18 mins
Make no mistake: Space is a very hostile environment. Astronauts in orbit suffer from conditions caused by the lack of gravity, small living quarters and other factors. So how do these astronauts cope? Tune in to learn more about the drugs used in space.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alison I don't Milk, the science editor at how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
rider how stuff works dot com. And uh, this time
(00:24):
we're talking about space drugs. Alison, you've seen Dune, right film? Yes,
of course, yes, sure? Okay, do you remember that they
had the whole bit with the with the spice right melange, Yes,
they got it. They That's also the name of the
place that cuts my hair. I wonder if it was inspired.
(00:44):
Um okay, no sand worms there or anything. No, but
they do have some good stylus. I wish I well,
I'm gonna I wish I'd known about that earlier. I
would have come up with a lot of jokes about
um hair LANs on Dune. But but anyway, the like
I said, the Dune centers around a drug, this fantastic
space drug that people take so they can see into
(01:05):
the future and and by seeing into the future, dodge
catastrophe while piloting giant spaceships through the stars. And of course,
science fiction drugs have no side effects, right, Oh, well,
you know they sometimes they do well well, like the
the Spices side effects end up with those blue eyes
and yeah, and then you can't then you're hooked on it.
(01:25):
You can never stop taking it. Um. But yeah, they
tend to have more fantastic um aspects to them. You know,
it will be something that allows you to see into
the future or it allows you to live forever. Um. Uh.
There are some of them a little more mundane, like
the Dune also has a drug called Simuda, which is
all about just enjoying music a lot, which I think
we probably have some of those here on earth. So
(01:47):
heightening your appreciation for something, you say, like ecstasy might yeah,
or you know or how you know, some some movies
look like you see it and you're like, how how
high were the people who made this film? Like, you know,
how high would you have Arizona to enjoy that? That's
a great comedy, that's a great film. Well, I mean,
(02:07):
I guess that's more one of those not how high
were they to make this film, but just how like
Matt yet to appreciate the film. Well, you can appreciate
that film anyway. Um. So back to science fiction, Yes,
they're there are tons of amazing amazing drug show up
dunes just one example. There's stuff like so Mach and
the Worthy Chronicle, Merge nine and Altered Carbon SOMA and
(02:31):
and phs um nose dive and heavy metal. Um, what's that?
What's that? Nose dive? It's a you know, I don't
actually remember nose dive all the well heavy metals with
the cartoon. Did you see heavy metal? Okay? Um? Yeah,
Plutonium Nyborg was the name of it, and I think
(02:51):
it was like this space cocaine. There's also a one
Cheech and Chong movie where they had something called space coke,
which was supposedly like super coke, came from space. That's
my understanding. I have not seen that one. Um. Then
like Philip K. Dick of course came up with a
really weird one in the Three Stigma of Palmer Eldrick Um,
and that was something called candy, which allowed space colonists
(03:13):
to really get involved with their doll collection. Like they
would have these little dolls that lived in these little houses,
and they would take the candy and they would like
really um connect with the dolls and the dolls like
you know the game, the video game the Sims. Well,
imagine like a drug that created the effect that people
were having when the SIMS first came out. So there
(03:36):
are a lot of drugs in science fiction and gaming
and actually in space though right, yes, as it turns
out in real life, um science fiction aside, we do
have some drug use in space, which is perfectly normal
because we have drug use all over the place on Earth,
just on an everyday, perfectly legal, perfectly normal basis, from
(03:57):
the caffeine I take in the morning to you know,
a glass of red wine you enjoy with dinner, yes,
the aspirin in the afternoon, and then you know, et cetera.
So so what what kind of what kind of drugs
do we have in space? What? What do you have?
Let's start off with a pretty popular one here on Earth, booze.
So coffee, as Robert alluded to, actually is available in space,
(04:18):
but alcohol is really more of a gray area. Um.
So let's look back in history in good old buzz
consumed uh communion wine on the moon, and if you
believe some of the stories, the Russian Mirror space station
was perhaps perhaps had its fair share of vodka. Some
people make that claim. Some people make that claim. And
(04:41):
then while the I S s the International Space Station
is technically a dry operation, similar to some dry counties, saying,
you know, Georgia. Uh NASA came under scrutiny back in
two thousand seven because there are these reports that astronauts
were hitting the bottle before takeoff. And I have to say,
if I were an astronaut about to take off, I
might be inclined to hit the bottle too, So I'm
not very much kind of condemned them. It kind of
(05:03):
takes the edge off of But then again, alcohol does
mess with your ability is a bit, so you're really
not gonna want an astronaut drinking alcohol probably before takeoff
and the pr disaster if they were to get pulled
over about halfway up. So they're actually um in addition
to perhaps hitting the bottle before takeoff, they've even um
done some brewing of space bears. Yeah. According to new scientists,
(05:27):
there's a University of Colorado student with who got a
little help from CORES, and the student actually sent a
miniature brewing kit into orbit as part of a thesis
on fermentation in space. So you might wonder how it
turned out. Apparently it was pretty foul. Yeah, did you
give people superpowers? I'm guessing it gave people superpowers. Well,
I guess the thing about gravity is uh, it's it's
(05:48):
kind of nice on earth, but it actually gives a
good head on your point anyway, Oh wow, I had
not thought of that. Well, moving away from beer to
something a little more druggy, if you will, is uh
is a motive phenyl, which is pretty interesting. Um and
this is you may you may know a variety of
(06:10):
this as a provigial um or mode alert, but motive
phenel is basically an upper that you can tell that
that they have available for astronauts. According to the Good
Drug Guide, it is quote a memory improving and mood
brightening psycho stimulant that quote enhances wakefulness, attention capacity, and visualist.
(06:32):
So basically, the deal is, if you're in space, sometimes
a lot of work will come up, you know, like, oh,
you have to fix the portal or the or the
engine or something, and if it doesn't get fixed then
you might die or or millions and millions and millions
of dollars of equipment is going to be damaged, etcetera.
So there comes a time where you've got to stay awake.
(06:52):
It's kind of kind of like when you're on that
long car drive you know. And no, but I'm saying,
you know how you're on that car drive in and
it's like you're starting to fall asleep, right, and if
you keep driving while you're falling asleep, then there's a
good chance you're gonna die. But you have that you
often have the option of say pulling over or stopping,
you know. So this is the equivalent of stopping at
(07:13):
the truck stop and getting one of those six hour
energy drinks, except this is apparently like a really good
six hour energy drink, then enables that it doesn't have
It doesn't have much in the way of like jeittariness
um as a side effect, and it's all aimed at
like keeping keeping the astrodaun alert on task and doing
whatever it needs to be done to accomplish that mission
and keep everything functional. Not quite as exciting as an
(07:37):
upper is a drug that's designed to prevent bone mass loss,
and this particular one is called zilla dronate. And as
you guys know, bone mass loss is a big problem
in space, so it's only natural that scientists have figured
out a way to combat bone mass loss. Originally, zilladronate
was used to prevent secondary bone tumors and conservations. But
according to a report on bioed online, the drug should
(08:00):
promise a few years back um as a means of
slowing bone mass loss in space. So NASA's still looking
into it. Looks like the jury is still out on
this particular drug. We we've we've developed a number of
technologies just try and combat bone lass, bone mass loss
and space, everything from the like the Stephen Colvert treadmill
to h I think it's called a penguin suit that
(08:21):
the Russians worked on years and years back, and it's
kind of like a mechanical uh suit you would wear
um had like elastic in it and all that. It
would basically make all your movements would be definitely sert
more energy to perform them. Oh yeah, I didn't Susanne
Summers and make a version of that on the Tunk
Shopping Network yet Wow, and like like a Suzanne Summers
(08:42):
power suit. Um no, I'd use she did not? Did
she know? Okay, because because anybody listening to this probably
is just about to hit YouTube for that, I wanted
to run out and hit YouTube for that. Susanne Summers
and a mechanized power suit running amuck on a TV set,
So on your bone mass space drugs, it's hard to
imagine anybody abusing them on Earth. Uh. It's a different
(09:03):
case with something called scopel amine. So another thing about
being in a witless environment is sometimes serious stomach gets
a little upset. Sometimes you might vomit, and vomitating in
space is not a good thing at all. Uh, you know,
just you can imagine it. Yeah, little bits just the
in the sheer projectile of it. We just you know,
(09:26):
cover the entire station. So you don't want it to
happen um for any number of reasons. So they have
this thing called the scope decks UH. And this is
a speedy cocktail of scope al amine and dexidrine and UH.
Together these combat nausea all right on Earth though. Scope
al amine is also known as burn danga and it
(09:48):
is a powerful sedative extracted for the from the Rugmansia.
I'm guessing at that one flower which is native to Colombia,
okay um and it's u commonly used as a central
nervous system to present UH in patform to treat nausea,
sea sickness, motion sickness, and less commonly in treatments of
(10:08):
parkinson symptoms and in uh uh and as as an aesthetic.
But where it's abused. You see some cases where it's
abused though in Colombia, because if taken in high enough doses,
it apparently creates this kind of kind of continuing to
a zombie. And there have been cases where someone has
been dosed with this uh this particular drug and then
(10:30):
somebody has taken advantage of them, like you know, robbed them,
et cetera. Is it kind of like a rufie, kind
of like a rufie. Yeah, um, it just kind of
makes you susceptible to whatever. In fact, the c I
a Um apparently experimented with it in the sixties to
see if it could be used as like a truth
serum um. Now, there's also a lot of urban legends
surrounding this, Like I think there have been I've read
(10:52):
that there there have been emails going around saying if
you go to Columbia, don't take a business card from
anybody because they're lacing the business cards with drugs and
if you take it will be turned into their slave
for years. And that's probably not the case. And also
there's ah, it's it's also an easy scapegoat. You know,
it's kind of like, oh, I accidentally stayed out all night.
(11:12):
Oh somebody scope of mean me. That's why that's where
my money went and the evening so um so yeah,
it's it's at once an excellent means of fighting nausea
in space, and it's also known as the devil's breath
in Columbia, where it can be used to take advantage
of people. Interesting, I've not heard of that one. So
(11:34):
also in space, you're gonna encounter vomit and lunar dust.
And lunar dust is a huge nuisance. And why well,
because you have a lot of sensitive equipment up in
space and it can damage it, especially on the Moon.
That's where the lunar dust really becomes a problem. Good point, Robert. Um.
If the lunar doest coach your space suit, for example, Um,
you can absorb enough solar energy to basically be baked.
(11:58):
That really shocked me when I first learned about that.
I just had put one and two together on that one.
And then the National Space Biomedical Research Institute n s
r B AT n s r b r I has
also pointed out that if you track lunar dust into
a low gravity lunar base, it could wind up inside
our lungs and that would be bad. According to Science Daily,
(12:19):
there are no known illnesses due to lunar dust exposure,
but it has a lot in common with fresh fractured courts,
and this is a highly toxic substance. So the long
term effects of lunar dust could be could be pretty bad,
and so leading researchers at this n s R b
r I Institute have proposed use of target drugs to
minimize the effect of these tiny particles being suspended in
(12:41):
our lungs, Which is basically a way of saying that
they're worried about lunar dust inner lungs and they're trying
to figure out ways that it doesn't happen for the astronauts.
I mean, they have to deal with enough in space.
Why should they have to deal actually go back to
the Moon for that to be a problem. So that
the research maybe put on the back burner. And now
you get the out, you get the next exciting drug.
(13:02):
I get stuck with the bone mass loss and the
lunar dusk, and you get stuff like tranquilizers. Well, um, hey,
I didn't divide him up or well I guess they did,
but still, um, yeah, the next one is tranquilizers. Um,
and this is this is really awesome. UM. You know,
you read a lot about people going crazy in space,
or I mean I read a lot about people going
crazy in space. You've probably not so much. But um,
(13:25):
it's you know, it's something we have to actually, um,
you know, keep on the radar because it's a high streel.
It's just very stressful situation up there, and if somebody
loses it. Um, you know, it's a very small environment.
You know a lot of people are You're gonna everybody's
gonna have to hang around the crazy person. The crazy
person is going to be around a lot of sensitive equipment. UM,
so they're gonna have to bring them under control. So
(13:47):
NASA actually, according to a two thousand seven report from
Associated Press, NASA actually keeps a few trunks on hand
just in case anyone goes crazy, um or you know,
become suicide or so I cotting. NASA recommends binding the
individual's wrist and ankles with duct tape, strapping them down
with a bungee cord, and if necessary, sticking them with
(14:08):
a tranquilizer just to knock them out. I think that's
good to know that they have some of those on hand.
And the duct tape, the duck course, the duct tape
can come in handy just about for anything. I mean,
they used it to fix fixed lunar rovers um and
that goes back to the space dust Actually remember this story, Yeah,
where the mud flap or the dust flaps I guess, oh,
(14:29):
and the lunar rover. So the dust flap fell off
and they realized that we, you know, hey, we can't
drive this around because it's gonna shoot all this uh
this lunar dust up and it's gonna harm equipment, et cetera.
So they were able to take a believe, uh, some
maps that they had they were like laminated, and then
between that and duct tape, they built new mud flaps.
So duct tape ever the space traveler's friend. So it's
(14:52):
not just that astronauts maybe taking ducks in space, but
scientists are also interested in using space as a sort
of laboratory for figuring out new drugs, and in a
far more advanced way than the than the beer experiment
that we mentioned earlier. Yeah, space has long been heralded
as a frontier for drug development. So NASA, for example,
has done experiments to study the three D growth of
(15:15):
these protein crystals in microgravity, and they were basically hoping
that the structure would help drug designers develop new treatments
that target specific diseases. But the long and short of
it is that in space, in microgravity, the biological systems
UM made you funky things that they don't in fact
do on Earth interrestrial laboratories. So that's why space proves
(15:37):
a handy laboratory for for drug development. And the other
the flip side of that is that NASA's has observed
that the effectiveness of some drugs decreases after travel aboard
the Space Shuttle UM or time spent aboard the I
S S. So that's kind of another obstacle to man's
deep space exploration. So if you're developing all these drugs,
(15:58):
but then you're in space for a while there, right,
you're not gonna have enough anti vomit medication to get
you all the way to your distant planet destination. So yeah,
those are some of the the real life drugs that
one might encounter in orbit and beyond UM. And you know,
if we you know, come back to for a second
(16:19):
to the science fiction stuff at the beginning, it's like
any time you encounter these crazy fantastic space drugs, it
seems like a lot of the time it's something that
uh that people encounter on a different planet. You know,
it's like it's the it's the melange um that you know,
it's created by the sand worms or um. Clark Ashton
Smith had at the story called the Plutonium drug that
(16:40):
was where you know, this was this was written um
decades and decades ago, uh and envisioned like finding plants
on Mars and getting a drug from that, and some
sort of growth on Pluto and getting a drug from that.
In reality, I mean, we haven't actually found any planets
that have anything you can't even conceivably like life, So
we're not we're probably not gonna be fined any space
(17:00):
drugs of that nature anytime soon. But clearly as long
as UH as humans are going to continue to be
going into space, we're going to look for UM all
sorts of Earthbound and Up and the Space Grown Drugs
album out. So if you have a question on space
on astronauts and drugs or astronauts in space on drugs,
(17:22):
send us an email at Science Stuff at how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics because at how stuff works dot com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot Com home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alison I don't Milk, the science editor at how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
rider how stuff works dot com. And uh, this time
(00:24):
we're talking about space drugs. Alison, you've seen Dune, right film? Yes,
of course, yes, sure? Okay, do you remember that they
had the whole bit with the with the spice right melange, Yes,
they got it. They That's also the name of the
place that cuts my hair. I wonder if it was inspired.
(00:44):
Um okay, no sand worms there or anything. No, but
they do have some good stylus. I wish I well,
I'm gonna I wish I'd known about that earlier. I
would have come up with a lot of jokes about
um hair LANs on Dune. But but anyway, the like
I said, the Dune centers around a drug, this fantastic
space drug that people take so they can see into
(01:05):
the future and and by seeing into the future, dodge
catastrophe while piloting giant spaceships through the stars. And of course,
science fiction drugs have no side effects, right, Oh, well,
you know they sometimes they do well well, like the
the Spices side effects end up with those blue eyes
and yeah, and then you can't then you're hooked on it.
(01:25):
You can never stop taking it. Um. But yeah, they
tend to have more fantastic um aspects to them. You know,
it will be something that allows you to see into
the future or it allows you to live forever. Um. Uh.
There are some of them a little more mundane, like
the Dune also has a drug called Simuda, which is
all about just enjoying music a lot, which I think
we probably have some of those here on earth. So
(01:47):
heightening your appreciation for something, you say, like ecstasy might yeah,
or you know or how you know, some some movies
look like you see it and you're like, how how
high were the people who made this film? Like, you know,
how high would you have Arizona to enjoy that? That's
a great comedy, that's a great film. Well, I mean,
(02:07):
I guess that's more one of those not how high
were they to make this film, but just how like
Matt yet to appreciate the film. Well, you can appreciate
that film anyway. Um. So back to science fiction, Yes,
they're there are tons of amazing amazing drug show up
dunes just one example. There's stuff like so Mach and
the Worthy Chronicle, Merge nine and Altered Carbon SOMA and
(02:31):
and phs um nose dive and heavy metal. Um, what's that?
What's that? Nose dive? It's a you know, I don't
actually remember nose dive all the well heavy metals with
the cartoon. Did you see heavy metal? Okay? Um? Yeah,
Plutonium Nyborg was the name of it, and I think
(02:51):
it was like this space cocaine. There's also a one
Cheech and Chong movie where they had something called space coke,
which was supposedly like super coke, came from space. That's
my understanding. I have not seen that one. Um. Then
like Philip K. Dick of course came up with a
really weird one in the Three Stigma of Palmer Eldrick Um,
and that was something called candy, which allowed space colonists
(03:13):
to really get involved with their doll collection. Like they
would have these little dolls that lived in these little houses,
and they would take the candy and they would like
really um connect with the dolls and the dolls like
you know the game, the video game the Sims. Well,
imagine like a drug that created the effect that people
were having when the SIMS first came out. So there
(03:36):
are a lot of drugs in science fiction and gaming
and actually in space though right, yes, as it turns
out in real life, um science fiction aside, we do
have some drug use in space, which is perfectly normal
because we have drug use all over the place on Earth,
just on an everyday, perfectly legal, perfectly normal basis, from
(03:57):
the caffeine I take in the morning to you know,
a glass of red wine you enjoy with dinner, yes,
the aspirin in the afternoon, and then you know, et cetera.
So so what what kind of what kind of drugs
do we have in space? What? What do you have?
Let's start off with a pretty popular one here on Earth, booze.
So coffee, as Robert alluded to, actually is available in space,
(04:18):
but alcohol is really more of a gray area. Um.
So let's look back in history in good old buzz
consumed uh communion wine on the moon, and if you
believe some of the stories, the Russian Mirror space station
was perhaps perhaps had its fair share of vodka. Some
people make that claim. Some people make that claim. And
(04:41):
then while the I S s the International Space Station
is technically a dry operation, similar to some dry counties, saying,
you know, Georgia. Uh NASA came under scrutiny back in
two thousand seven because there are these reports that astronauts
were hitting the bottle before takeoff. And I have to say,
if I were an astronaut about to take off, I
might be inclined to hit the bottle too, So I'm
not very much kind of condemned them. It kind of
(05:03):
takes the edge off of But then again, alcohol does
mess with your ability is a bit, so you're really
not gonna want an astronaut drinking alcohol probably before takeoff
and the pr disaster if they were to get pulled
over about halfway up. So they're actually um in addition
to perhaps hitting the bottle before takeoff, they've even um
done some brewing of space bears. Yeah. According to new scientists,
(05:27):
there's a University of Colorado student with who got a
little help from CORES, and the student actually sent a
miniature brewing kit into orbit as part of a thesis
on fermentation in space. So you might wonder how it
turned out. Apparently it was pretty foul. Yeah, did you
give people superpowers? I'm guessing it gave people superpowers. Well,
I guess the thing about gravity is uh, it's it's
(05:48):
kind of nice on earth, but it actually gives a
good head on your point anyway, Oh wow, I had
not thought of that. Well, moving away from beer to
something a little more druggy, if you will, is uh
is a motive phenyl, which is pretty interesting. Um and
this is you may you may know a variety of
(06:10):
this as a provigial um or mode alert, but motive
phenel is basically an upper that you can tell that
that they have available for astronauts. According to the Good
Drug Guide, it is quote a memory improving and mood
brightening psycho stimulant that quote enhances wakefulness, attention capacity, and visualist.
(06:32):
So basically, the deal is, if you're in space, sometimes
a lot of work will come up, you know, like, oh,
you have to fix the portal or the or the
engine or something, and if it doesn't get fixed then
you might die or or millions and millions and millions
of dollars of equipment is going to be damaged, etcetera.
So there comes a time where you've got to stay awake.
(06:52):
It's kind of kind of like when you're on that
long car drive you know. And no, but I'm saying,
you know how you're on that car drive in and
it's like you're starting to fall asleep, right, and if
you keep driving while you're falling asleep, then there's a
good chance you're gonna die. But you have that you
often have the option of say pulling over or stopping,
you know. So this is the equivalent of stopping at
(07:13):
the truck stop and getting one of those six hour
energy drinks, except this is apparently like a really good
six hour energy drink, then enables that it doesn't have
It doesn't have much in the way of like jeittariness
um as a side effect, and it's all aimed at
like keeping keeping the astrodaun alert on task and doing
whatever it needs to be done to accomplish that mission
and keep everything functional. Not quite as exciting as an
(07:37):
upper is a drug that's designed to prevent bone mass loss,
and this particular one is called zilla dronate. And as
you guys know, bone mass loss is a big problem
in space, so it's only natural that scientists have figured
out a way to combat bone mass loss. Originally, zilladronate
was used to prevent secondary bone tumors and conservations. But
according to a report on bioed online, the drug should
(08:00):
promise a few years back um as a means of
slowing bone mass loss in space. So NASA's still looking
into it. Looks like the jury is still out on
this particular drug. We we've we've developed a number of
technologies just try and combat bone lass, bone mass loss
and space, everything from the like the Stephen Colvert treadmill
to h I think it's called a penguin suit that
(08:21):
the Russians worked on years and years back, and it's
kind of like a mechanical uh suit you would wear
um had like elastic in it and all that. It
would basically make all your movements would be definitely sert
more energy to perform them. Oh yeah, I didn't Susanne
Summers and make a version of that on the Tunk
Shopping Network yet Wow, and like like a Suzanne Summers
(08:42):
power suit. Um no, I'd use she did not? Did
she know? Okay, because because anybody listening to this probably
is just about to hit YouTube for that, I wanted
to run out and hit YouTube for that. Susanne Summers
and a mechanized power suit running amuck on a TV set,
So on your bone mass space drugs, it's hard to
imagine anybody abusing them on Earth. Uh. It's a different
(09:03):
case with something called scopel amine. So another thing about
being in a witless environment is sometimes serious stomach gets
a little upset. Sometimes you might vomit, and vomitating in
space is not a good thing at all. Uh, you know,
just you can imagine it. Yeah, little bits just the
in the sheer projectile of it. We just you know,
(09:26):
cover the entire station. So you don't want it to
happen um for any number of reasons. So they have
this thing called the scope decks UH. And this is
a speedy cocktail of scope al amine and dexidrine and UH.
Together these combat nausea all right on Earth though. Scope
al amine is also known as burn danga and it
(09:48):
is a powerful sedative extracted for the from the Rugmansia.
I'm guessing at that one flower which is native to Colombia,
okay um and it's u commonly used as a central
nervous system to present UH in patform to treat nausea,
sea sickness, motion sickness, and less commonly in treatments of
(10:08):
parkinson symptoms and in uh uh and as as an aesthetic.
But where it's abused. You see some cases where it's
abused though in Colombia, because if taken in high enough doses,
it apparently creates this kind of kind of continuing to
a zombie. And there have been cases where someone has
been dosed with this uh this particular drug and then
(10:30):
somebody has taken advantage of them, like you know, robbed them,
et cetera. Is it kind of like a rufie, kind
of like a rufie. Yeah, um, it just kind of
makes you susceptible to whatever. In fact, the c I
a Um apparently experimented with it in the sixties to
see if it could be used as like a truth
serum um. Now, there's also a lot of urban legends
surrounding this, Like I think there have been I've read
(10:52):
that there there have been emails going around saying if
you go to Columbia, don't take a business card from
anybody because they're lacing the business cards with drugs and
if you take it will be turned into their slave
for years. And that's probably not the case. And also
there's ah, it's it's also an easy scapegoat. You know,
it's kind of like, oh, I accidentally stayed out all night.
(11:12):
Oh somebody scope of mean me. That's why that's where
my money went and the evening so um so yeah,
it's it's at once an excellent means of fighting nausea
in space, and it's also known as the devil's breath
in Columbia, where it can be used to take advantage
of people. Interesting, I've not heard of that one. So
(11:34):
also in space, you're gonna encounter vomit and lunar dust.
And lunar dust is a huge nuisance. And why well,
because you have a lot of sensitive equipment up in
space and it can damage it, especially on the Moon.
That's where the lunar dust really becomes a problem. Good point, Robert. Um.
If the lunar doest coach your space suit, for example, Um,
you can absorb enough solar energy to basically be baked.
(11:58):
That really shocked me when I first learned about that.
I just had put one and two together on that one.
And then the National Space Biomedical Research Institute n s
r B AT n s r b r I has
also pointed out that if you track lunar dust into
a low gravity lunar base, it could wind up inside
our lungs and that would be bad. According to Science Daily,
(12:19):
there are no known illnesses due to lunar dust exposure,
but it has a lot in common with fresh fractured courts,
and this is a highly toxic substance. So the long
term effects of lunar dust could be could be pretty bad,
and so leading researchers at this n s R b
r I Institute have proposed use of target drugs to
minimize the effect of these tiny particles being suspended in
(12:41):
our lungs, Which is basically a way of saying that
they're worried about lunar dust inner lungs and they're trying
to figure out ways that it doesn't happen for the astronauts.
I mean, they have to deal with enough in space.
Why should they have to deal actually go back to
the Moon for that to be a problem. So that
the research maybe put on the back burner. And now
you get the out, you get the next exciting drug.
(13:02):
I get stuck with the bone mass loss and the
lunar dusk, and you get stuff like tranquilizers. Well, um, hey,
I didn't divide him up or well I guess they did,
but still, um, yeah, the next one is tranquilizers. Um,
and this is this is really awesome. UM. You know,
you read a lot about people going crazy in space,
or I mean I read a lot about people going
crazy in space. You've probably not so much. But um,
(13:25):
it's you know, it's something we have to actually, um,
you know, keep on the radar because it's a high streel.
It's just very stressful situation up there, and if somebody
loses it. Um, you know, it's a very small environment.
You know a lot of people are You're gonna everybody's
gonna have to hang around the crazy person. The crazy
person is going to be around a lot of sensitive equipment. UM,
so they're gonna have to bring them under control. So
(13:47):
NASA actually, according to a two thousand seven report from
Associated Press, NASA actually keeps a few trunks on hand
just in case anyone goes crazy, um or you know,
become suicide or so I cotting. NASA recommends binding the
individual's wrist and ankles with duct tape, strapping them down
with a bungee cord, and if necessary, sticking them with
(14:08):
a tranquilizer just to knock them out. I think that's
good to know that they have some of those on hand.
And the duct tape, the duck course, the duct tape
can come in handy just about for anything. I mean,
they used it to fix fixed lunar rovers um and
that goes back to the space dust Actually remember this story, Yeah,
where the mud flap or the dust flaps I guess, oh,
(14:29):
and the lunar rover. So the dust flap fell off
and they realized that we, you know, hey, we can't
drive this around because it's gonna shoot all this uh
this lunar dust up and it's gonna harm equipment, et cetera.
So they were able to take a believe, uh, some
maps that they had they were like laminated, and then
between that and duct tape, they built new mud flaps.
So duct tape ever the space traveler's friend. So it's
(14:52):
not just that astronauts maybe taking ducks in space, but
scientists are also interested in using space as a sort
of laboratory for figuring out new drugs, and in a
far more advanced way than the than the beer experiment
that we mentioned earlier. Yeah, space has long been heralded
as a frontier for drug development. So NASA, for example,
has done experiments to study the three D growth of
(15:15):
these protein crystals in microgravity, and they were basically hoping
that the structure would help drug designers develop new treatments
that target specific diseases. But the long and short of
it is that in space, in microgravity, the biological systems
UM made you funky things that they don't in fact
do on Earth interrestrial laboratories. So that's why space proves
(15:37):
a handy laboratory for for drug development. And the other
the flip side of that is that NASA's has observed
that the effectiveness of some drugs decreases after travel aboard
the Space Shuttle UM or time spent aboard the I
S S. So that's kind of another obstacle to man's
deep space exploration. So if you're developing all these drugs,
(15:58):
but then you're in space for a while there, right,
you're not gonna have enough anti vomit medication to get
you all the way to your distant planet destination. So yeah,
those are some of the the real life drugs that
one might encounter in orbit and beyond UM. And you know,
if we you know, come back to for a second
(16:19):
to the science fiction stuff at the beginning, it's like
any time you encounter these crazy fantastic space drugs, it
seems like a lot of the time it's something that
uh that people encounter on a different planet. You know,
it's like it's the it's the melange um that you know,
it's created by the sand worms or um. Clark Ashton
Smith had at the story called the Plutonium drug that
(16:40):
was where you know, this was this was written um
decades and decades ago, uh and envisioned like finding plants
on Mars and getting a drug from that, and some
sort of growth on Pluto and getting a drug from that.
In reality, I mean, we haven't actually found any planets
that have anything you can't even conceivably like life, So
we're not we're probably not gonna be fined any space
(17:00):
drugs of that nature anytime soon. But clearly as long
as UH as humans are going to continue to be
going into space, we're going to look for UM all
sorts of Earthbound and Up and the Space Grown Drugs
album out. So if you have a question on space
on astronauts and drugs or astronauts in space on drugs,
(17:22):
send us an email at Science Stuff at how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics because at how stuff works dot com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot Com home page
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