Flight crew vertigo sickness.

[BILLR]

What was the percentage of flight crew who, on orbit, experienced vertigo sickness. I know this was not uncommon and would settle down after a time.

[Obviousman]

The figure quoted for Space Adaptation Syndrome is about 50%, IIRC. The incidence amongst Apollo crews was reportedly much, much lower. Of course, some may have had mild incidence of SAS and not revealed / reported it.

We know Frank Borman on Apollo 8 seemed to suffer it (though he blamed it on a flu), and it hit Rusty Schweickart on Apollo 9.

[gwiz]

One reason for the lack of early reports of sickness during Mercury and Gemini is that moving around inside the spacecraft makes it a lot worse.  The early astronauts spent most of the time in their seats, as the capsules were so cramped.  Apollo was the first to provide manoeuvre room, and the Shuttle and space stations provide much more.

[Noldi400]

The figure I've heard is about 50% of people experiencing some effects, with about 10% showing severe symptoms. There was an article in Science Daily a few years ago about some research done on the subject.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521112119.htm

That may well be a conservative figure; a later article in Air & Space Magazine put the number at closer to 70-90% of astronauts feeling some symptoms.

There some interesting and amusing stories connected with this phenomenon.  Dr. Millard Reschke, chief of neuroscience at Johnson Space Center, has expressed the opinion that the three astronauts of Apollo 7 were all profoundly space sick, but in those macho-test-pilot days, they claimed the problem was "head colds". Nausea would certainly fit with their refusal to wear helmets during reentry; nobody wants to barf with a fishbowl over their head.

The weekend before Apollo 11 went up, Michael Collins went up in a T-38 and spent time doing violent aerobatics in what he called a "poor but hopefully adequate imitation" of the inner-ear abuse caused by zero-G, deliberately pushing himself to the edge of nausea before backing off. He knew from previous Apollo astronauts that any symptoms that appeared tended to be worst during the early part of the flight, and he was very concerned about the possibility of being ill during the time when they would perform the transposition and docking maneuver (to dock the LEM to the nose of the CSM), since as CM Pilot he was the only one trained on the procedure.

And finally, when Senator Jake Garn went along on a shuttle mission in 1985, he was sooo sick that he was memorialized by the "Garn Scale", an unofficial scale used to measure one's degree of misery.  Garn was no stranger to flight (he was an Air National Guard pilot with better than 10,000 hours in jets) but he still spent pretty much the entire mission "velcroed to the wall" as some of the other crew members put it.

[ka9q]

In other words, space sickness seems to be something different from ordinary motion sickness.

Then again, even the Apollo astronauts readily admitted becoming seasick after landing on heavy seas.

[Noldi400]

Yeah. As inconsistent as it seems, I guess they equated spacesickness with airsickness and thought that test pilots shouldn't be vulnerable.  Seasickness, I guess, could happen to anyone.

[ka9q]

Jack Schmitt probably didn't endear himself to too many of the pilot astronauts by saying it was easier to train a scientist to be a pilot than to train a pilot to be a scientist, but he's probably right. I've always wondered why it was so important for all astronauts to be test pilots or even fighter pilots when the two jobs (prior to the shuttle) were so different.

[ka9q]

About a month ago I saw a talk by astronaut Sam Durrance, an astronomer who flew twice on the shuttle (STS-35 and STS-67), both ultraviolet astronomy missions. I asked him this exact question. He said he had very little problem with space adaptation syndrome.

In fact, on his first flight he had almost none. He was on the second shift so he went to sleep almost immediately after reaching orbit (though how anybody could do that is beyond me). He had somewhat more difficulty the second time because he had to work right away, but by carefully limiting his movements in the first day or two it wasn't bad.

He says he had more of a problem re-adapting to 1g after returning (both his flights were fairly long). It took several days to walk again without thinking about it, but the most entertaining part of his story was an anecdote about being with his family shortly after returning from one flight. In one hand he held a jacket and in the other a camera. It being chilly, he decided to put on the jacket, an operation that requires both hands....so he promptly let go of the camera expecting it to stay where he left it.

He says NASA tells the families to keep these guys away from the good china for a while after they come back.

So it would definitely seem that being an experienced pilot doesn't immunize you to space adaptation syndrome. Some people just get it and some don't.

In fact, I almost wonder if it's the other way around. Could it be that jet jockeys are so conditioned to strong, sudden accelerations being associated with certain visual inputs (or lack of same) and that space is so different their previous experience actually gets in the way? Even highly experienced astronauts spend far more time in aircraft than they do in space.

[ka9q]

Yeah. As inconsistent as it seems, I guess they equated spacesickness with airsickness and thought that test pilots shouldn't be vulnerable.  Seasickness, I guess, could happen to anyone.

I think it's a matter of control. It's pretty unusual for the driver of a car to get carsick, not only because his eyes are outside the car most of the time but also because he is in control of those accelerations and can anticipate them. You're far more likely to get sick as a passenger since you're not in control.

So it makes perfect sense that a jet pilot who never gets sick while flying even acrobatically might well get seasick when he has absolutely no control over what's happening.

[Donnie B.]

In one hand he held a jacket and in the other a camera. It being chilly, he decided to put on the jacket, an operation that requires both hands....so he promptly let go of the camera expecting it to stay where he left it.

He says NASA tells the families to keep these guys away from the good china for a while after they come back.

Reminds me of one of Asimov's stories, in which Dr. Wendell Urth catches a criminal by proving he was on the Moon quite recently.  The giveaway was that the perp threw a valuable and fragile object but the throw came up far short of the mark -- hence he had adjusted to low gravity.

[ka9q]

Wow. Amazing what science fiction authors have successfully predicted.

My favorite, both for its successes and misses, is Heinlein's The Roads Must Roll. He gets many things right, such as the automobile having an unsustainable appetite for precious petroleum. But he completely missed the wireless communications revolution. The chief engineer of the Road, a VIP, stays in touch with his office while eating in a restaurant on the road by having the waitress bring a phone that he can plug in at his table.

[smartcooky]

In one hand he held a jacket and in the other a camera. It being chilly, he decided to put on the jacket, an operation that requires both hands....so he promptly let go of the camera expecting it to stay where he left it.

He says NASA tells the families to keep these guys away from the good china for a while after they come back.

Reminds me of one of Asimov's stories, in which Dr. Wendell Urth catches a criminal by proving he was on the Moon quite recently.  The giveaway was that the perp threw a valuable and fragile object but the throw came up far short of the mark -- hence he had adjusted to low gravity.

I remember it well; the story was called The Singing Bell.

[Sus_pilot]

In one hand he held a jacket and in the other a camera. It being chilly, he decided to put on the jacket, an operation that requires both hands....so he promptly let go of the camera expecting it to stay where he left it.

He says NASA tells the families to keep these guys away from the good china for a while after they come back.

Reminds me of one of Asimov's stories, in which Dr. Wendell Urth catches a criminal by proving he was on the Moon quite recently.  The giveaway was that the perp threw a valuable and fragile object but the throw came up far short of the mark -- hence he had adjusted to low gravity.

I remember it well; the story was called The Singing Bell.

Probably the best of the Wendell Urth stories, IMHO.  It even had a pretty good red herring at the beginning of the story, leading you to believe that Urth would solve the mystery other than the way he did.

[Ranb]

I think it's a matter of control. It's pretty unusual for the driver of a car to get carsick, not only because his eyes are outside the car most of the time but also because he is in control of those accelerations and can anticipate them. You're far more likely to get sick as a passenger since you're not in control.

So it makes perfect sense that a jet pilot who never gets sick while flying even acrobatically might well get seasick when he has absolutely no control over what's happening.

That jives with my experience as well.  My daughter who is Army reserves and has some helicopter time was barfing during an air tour of Oahu while in the back seat of a Cessna 172.  This was even before I flew into the rough air between the mountains.  One of my instructors commented on making sure the least experienced passengers were in the front seat if possible to avoid air sickness as the rear seat just felt differently.

Ranb

[Obviousman]

One of the things we will do to a student pilot who experiences air sickness is to make them take the controls. The act of having to fly the aircraft sometimes helps combat the symptoms.

Overall though, it is a mismatch between your vestibular system and your visual system*; your "balance" says one thing and your eyes say something else; the mismatch causes a problem with many people leading to "motion sickness".

(* That's why with seasickness you shouldn't go below decks and lie down. Your eyes say everything is normal but your balance says you are rocking)