Dutch boffin, astronaut in space-sickness breakthrough

A Dutch PhD student believes she may have developed a ground-based method useful for identifying people who are subject to space sickness, following lengthy research during which she whirled astronauts around in a centrifuge. Suzanne Nooij defended her thesis yesterday at the Delft University of Technology. While Nooij herself …

[lIsRT]

Treatment?

Out of curiosity, what would they do about this?

I'd assume for space flights, the intention is to minimise the slightest possibility of anything going wrong, so once a potential astronaut is identified as susceptible, presumably they'd be grounded or treated.

Would this be pills or something more guaranteed to work? (think artificial stomach valves that absolutely-will-not-ever physically allow something to go the "wrong way"...)

[TeeCee]

I though Astronauts were supposed to be clever?

Researcher: "I'd like to spin you in a centrifuge for an hour and then have you puke your guts up, 'cos I'm pretty sure that you're the puking types and I'd like to prove it."

15 Astronauts: "Great! Let's do it."

I shall revise my opinion of our spacefarers down a bit on this one.

Mine's the spacesuit with the sick down the front.

[Shabble]

Obedience over intelligence

If you're choosing people who are going to be in charge of a craft worth billions of dollars, who will be under great stress most of the time and who may be placed in extreme danger at a moment's notice, what is the single most important quality?

Obedience!

You don't want the pilot freaking out and disobaying orders.

As for space sickness - if space travel is ever going to be a big part of our future, nailing the problem of space sickness is a top priority. NASA need space sickness suffering astronauts to use as test subjects for various trial treatments.

[amanfromMars]

dDutch IntelAIgents for Vroom Vroom in Virtual Rooms ....

.... CyberIntelAIgently Designed Spaces/Heavenly Places/ HyperRadioProActive Boundary Layers.

"Suzanne Nooij defended her thesis yesterday at the Delft University of Technology. While Nooij herself has never been an astronaut, her research was supervised by Professor Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutchman in space*."

Bravo, Suzanne and Mentor Monitor Wubbo, and QuITe Obviously a Stirling Joint Effort too, Boldly Going into dDeeper EnLightening Spaces.

And there is a QuITe SurReal ur2die4 Relative Significance with this little ditty .... http://tinyurl.com/66agwz.

Is there Immunity in Space Sickness or would that be considered a Valuable Asset and Medicine to be Copied/Reverse Trace Engineered for Active Flight HyperRadioProActive Drive VXXXXine.

ESA and Prof Pillinger are exceedingly Quiet ...... and they making new Cakes to put in the Oven?

[Anonymous Coward]

At last!

Great news! I always feel sick every time I go into space.

Mines the one with the sick inside the helmet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spinning around

I for one welcome our new vomit-belching, hyperspinning, hairy-faced outer-space-faring overlord, Wubbo Ockels.

He sounds very wub-able.

[Joe Cooper]

@I though Astronauts were supposed to be clever?

They're used to all kinds of shit like that, and they signed on to do space research anyway. That's what people are doing in space is researching things.

Remember that these guys will get into a rocket with a non-zero chance of blowing up to go into sickening zero-G for months while their bones deteoritate so they can do science.

An hour in a centrifuge for the sake of understanding space sickness is nothing.

[John Donovan]

RAF

The RAF have a treatment programme for pilots who become "stomach aware" during flying.

It consists of spinning them around in all manner of nauseating ways until they're just on the threshold of producing the technicolor yawn. Then they let them recover slightly, and repeat the process again and again until they no longer feel sick. This can take several weeks... It must be the worst weeks in a pilot's life.

Paris because she would never get sick in space, and would make the best ambassador to our alien overlords.

[TeeCee]

We *really* need a "tongue in cheek" icon.......

I though the coat/leaving one said enough here. I also thought that anyone reading it wouldn't believe that I actually wore a spacesuit covered in sick and would get the message that way.

Guess I was wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Borat in space?

Wubbo Ockels? Borat surely?

[Peyton]

I'm no rocket scientist, but...

...I believe it's usually "rocket scientists" that are used to imply cleverness, not astronauts.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe amanfromMars

may have a dirty mind ;-)

[Nexox Enigma]

Facial Hair?

Is there a record of the largest moustache ever to orbit the planet? I nominate that one.

[Liam Proven]

Doc Oc in spaaaaace!

The tentacles are stealthily concealed in the form of an implausibly large moustache, you see... Once in microgravity, it transforms into giant appendages. I mean, even more giant than normal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wubbo Ockels

I had a hampster named Wubbo Ocks once!