How To Calm a Jittery Astronaut
Russian Cosmonaut Says Alcohol Should Be Allowed on ISS, MosNews (2005)
“The Russian cosmonaut said that it would be “desirable” for spacemen to have 50 milliliters of wine or cognac every day. “But only to improve our work, to better cope with the psychological stress,” Sharipov said.”
Keith’s note: Perhaps this is a good idea. It sure beats the alternatives if on-orbit “psychological stress” is allowed to go untreated … ISS Emergency Procedures: Behavioral – Suicidal – Emergency and Behavioral – Acute Psychosis
“Talk with the patient while you are restraining him. Explain what you are doing, and that you are using a restraint to ensure that he is safe. Restrain patient using Gray Tape around wrists, ankles, and use a bungee around the torso. Administer 5 mg *Valium (Diazepam) Oral (P1-A12) – Sedative, (blue) anticonvulsant, antiseizure drug”
Not a bad idea, as long as the stuff is treated like the medicinal it’s being touted as. As in: Lock It Up, until needed, and stored as far away from the Russian part of the station as logistically possible.
Otherwise, when there comes a time to actually calm some poor soul from becoming a “psychonaut”, they may find that all the astro-vino & cosmos-cognac bottles have mysteriously evaporated.
they russians really need to just come out and say it – give me vodka and smokes and we’ll get along much better
I want to personally thank you for labeling the Russian cosmonaut corp as a bunch of untrustworthy alcoholics.
The space community salutes your insightful observations.
This was meant as h u m o r – hence the pun-names.
I happened to have worked in close proximity with Russians (and also Ukrainians, before things got… testy). Yes, they are the paragon of professionalism during working hours… but during “off” hours — and if they were stuck in the same facility — they’d break out the stuff (to “decompress”), and took to it like iced tea.
Even after several months to a year in claustrophobic free-fall, I’m sure the Russian space cadre are heads above in discipline to the enlistees living on a naval ship (or worse: a sub). But I wasn’t aware until now (when I read SpaceTech’s input), that there’s already vodka on the Russian side of the ISS. Jokes aside, I do sincerely hope that they exercise conservatism (not just moderation) up there… especially given the fact that those Soyuzes carry “survival guns”
Reviving a tradition from the era of wooden ships and iron men – the daily grog ration.
Given a source of sugar and yeast, I should think they’d be able to brew up their own. It’s something I’m sure will be wanted on Mars someday, so NASA can throw it on the Path to Mars pile of things to do.
Yeah… just going to make some bread on ISS, yeah bread.
Will be tougher without gravity, but that’s also an opportunity 🙂 They’ve probably already tested yeast in microgravity.
I attended more than one ISS project meetings where our future project was being put through the wringer because of 4 measly ounces of Isopropyl alcohol our project needed on orbit–Yet it was openly discussed that the Russians regularly had alcohol (Vodka) in their hab module but of an unknown quantity–so the U.S. side was erring heavily on the side of safety when introducing any additional alcohol into the environmental systems and scrubbers–so alcohol has been on ISS.
I wonder if the cosmonaut actually said “spacemen” or if something got lost in translation – the link is broken.
I’m the father of two daughters; watching the Dragon abort test coverage on TV, my youngest heard *manned* spaceflight as *man’s* which she interpreted as “no girls allowed”. I’m on a mini-crusade to replace manned with human or crewed.
The problem with “crewed” is that it’s a homophone for “crude”.
The problem with “human” is that the adjective is the same as the noun (unlike man/manned, crew/crewed), no way to differentiate between a mission about and a mission with humans.
Annoyingly, “Manned” is the best word. (Although ask your daughters to come up with better terminology, thinking about these kinds of issues. The wider the pool, the more diverse the ideas.)
How about “humanned”? Oh wait, lol. I guess we’d need to change “human” too. We’re kind of stuck with it. “Man” is within “woman” too. All sorts of semantic issues.
Terms like “man/manning/manned” evolved over centuries. Give us a couple of hundred years and I’m sure even the most convoluted PC terms will have become pithy and simple.
(GLBTTI will probably be a one syllable word.)
5mg? Seriously?