Slashdot Mirror
What Drugs Do Astronauts Take?
astroengine writes "Science fiction is stuffed full of examples of pill-popping space explorers and aliens enjoying psychedelic highs. After all, space is big; it can get boring/scary/crazy up there. It's little wonder, then, that our current space explorers consume a cocktail of uppers, downers, tranquilizers and alcohol to get the job done. Robert Lamb on tranquilizers in the space station: 'Sure, it hardly makes for a civilized evening aboard ISS, but it beats someone blowing the hatch because they think they saw something crawling on one of the solar panels.'"
That ever useful tool. However would we have gone to the stars without it?
Yes, according to a 2007 report from the Associated Press, astronauts keep a few tranqs on hand in case anyone goes all suicidal or psychotic in space. NASA recommends binding the individual's wrists and ankles with duct tape (ever the space traveler's friend!), strapping them down with a bungee cord and, if necessary, sticking them with a tranquilizer.
Has any sci-fi show other than Firefly ever mentioned duct tape?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You ever watch C beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate... on weed?
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I'm not sure what they take, but whatever they are, they are out of this world...
I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.
Please do try a diazepam or alprazolam Dave, they will surely calm you down.
"Do they smoke grass out in space, Bowie? Or do they smoke astroturf?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Perhaps it's my limited understanding of the word "do" at fault. I can only think of it in the present tense, rather than the future conditionals attached to such as "might". This leads me to have all kinds of misunderstandings, like wondering why they're taking pills to counteract a dust (!) that nobody's been closer than 230,000 miles to in the last 40 years. Or why the articles blathers on about zombies and CIA truth serum when talking about a sleeping/motion sickness pill that's been OTC for longer than NASA has been chartered. Or why NASA is having them take a "cocktail" to "get the job done" which would, if the description is accurate, prevent the job from getting done if not kill them (alcohol + uppers + downers + tranqs? Anyone remember Karen Ann Quinlan?). Quoting details from the equally unqualified and/or wrong doesn't dilute the article's idiocy. The content could have made a perfectly good article. Too bad the writer felt unequal to the job of writing a real article as you'd expect in a science magazine.
This article should be in "Entertainment". Or, if we're to keep such trash under science, we should have some subclasses that apply, like 'bullshit', 'lies', and 'science? what's that?'. Or maybe we just need to change the "news for nerds, stuff that matters" to "stuff that might fit into the popular subjects here, and might be real, or not; we're not sure, we don't read it".
Is this the result of voting on suitability of submissions? If so, maybe we ought to look into having editors that actually know something about the area they cover and approve articles based on content rather than side effects. It appears that ironically 'games' is getting more serious treatment than 'science'. Part of the problem is the 'science' articles being written, such as TFA. But the fix for that is the same fix for including decent science articles.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B