Motion sickness is rarely featured in popular media, the movie Woman on Top, starring Penelope Cruz, being a notable exception. (The movie features a woman who must drive or be in the “driving” position to avoid getting nauseated, which causes problems with her macho husband). In most stories set in outer space, motion sickness or other health deficits associated with microgravity seldom—if ever—play into the plot. This is a missed opportunity to challenge characters already under pressure. Imagine how much harder Ripley’s survival would’ve been in the Alien movies if she’d been struggling with motion sickness when the monster attacked. |
Space sickness can have serious implications if, for example, vomit landed on delicate equipment. According to the National Space Center, “astronauts use patches affixed to their body to give them doses of medication before spacewalks – as an added safety mechanism. It is one thing to throw up in your spacecraft, but throwing up inside your spacesuit helmet could be fatal. With nowhere for it to go, the potential for blocking up the oxygen supply or stopping an astronaut from being able to see means that extra safety steps need to be taken.” |
“Long-term exposure to zero gravity causes multiple health problems including redistribution of fluids and loss of bone and muscle mass. Over time, these effects can compromise astronaut performance, which can increase the risk of them being harmed, as well as reduce their ability to absorb oxygen, which slows down their cardiovascular activity.” (Davidson Institute) According to NASA, “For every month in space, astronauts’ weight-bearing bones become roughly 1% less dense if they don’t take precautions to counter this loss. Muscles, usually activated by simply moving around on Earth, also weaken because they no longer need to work as hard. This loss of bone and muscle is called atrophy [and] has serious implications for astronaut health.” |
“Were astronauts to embark upon a journey to Mars today, the 6-month exposure to weightlessness en route would leave them considerably debilitated, even with the implementation of the suite of piece-meal countermeasures currently employed. Continuous or intermittent exposure to simulated gravitational states on board the spacecraft while traveling to and from Mars, also known as artificial gravity, has the potential for enhancing adaptation to Mars gravity and re-adaptation to Earth gravity.” However: “No human-rated centrifuges [built] specifically to counteract cardiovascular and musculoskeletal deconditioning have flown in space to date.” And there are many unknowns, for example: “the impacts of centrifugation inside a space vehicle on the vibration level, motion sickness, or crew time.” |
I dreamed of going into space as a child, but assumed my terrible motion sickness (and poor eyesight) limited my aspirations. It’s possible I wouldn’t get sick in space . . . but the detrimental risks of space travel, including space sickness, remain very real—and woefully underutilized in modern science fiction stories.