Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: I know you have seen this video that's been making
Speaker 1: the rounds. I know you've seen it because we watched
Speaker 1: it together and did a whole episode of our video
Speaker 1: series about viral videos about it. But we have the
Speaker 1: video about crying in space and what that might consist of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a great video was put out by the
Speaker 1: I S S Commander, International Space Station Commander Chris Hatfield,
Speaker 1: and he demonstrates what it is like to cry in space.
Speaker 1: Now he doesn't actually he doesn't. Cried a sad novel
Speaker 1: and then begin you know, he's a man, he is
Speaker 1: he is manned up to a venture into the void
Speaker 1: and he has that he seems like a really nice guy.
Speaker 1: But you know, he's got a mustache. He has a mustache,
Speaker 1: He has kind of a there's a certain machismo to
Speaker 1: anybody that goes up into space, male or female. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: So if an astronaut is going to demonstrate what it's
Speaker 1: like to cry and space, they're going to have to
Speaker 1: escort some water in their eyes because these there are
Speaker 1: some hard boiled eggs. That's right, man or woman, you
Speaker 1: are a cowboy in outer space. So but one of
Speaker 1: the great things about this video is that it really
Speaker 1: does pull back the curtains on what it is like.
Speaker 1: There's rote day to day activities, including crying, right because um,
Speaker 1: I you know, assume that there are lots of emotional
Speaker 1: issues in outer space. And we've talked about this a bit.
Speaker 1: It's a high stress environment and as we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into in in this in another podcast, and it's a
Speaker 1: hostile environment, and and so it's possible that that tears
Speaker 1: could occur, and in all likelihood they have occurred. You know,
Speaker 1: just we've joked, there's been some pretty tense moments. You know,
Speaker 1: they locked themselves in the bathroom and just boo who yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and then also you can there are other reasons tears
Speaker 1: can form, you know, various irritations I irritations and sinus
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And you know that has happened. But his
Speaker 1: work has been great because he has he has done
Speaker 1: a really nice job in these videos of shining light
Speaker 1: on space minutia. You know, the little tiny bits of
Speaker 1: daily life you might not think about, like if if
Speaker 1: we didn't know better, I might think that they forgot
Speaker 1: to assign him anything to do, and he's just shooting
Speaker 1: a bunch of videos. But of course he has plenty
Speaker 1: of other well as well. I think that the one
Speaker 1: of the cool things about this video is that it
Speaker 1: also underscores this idea that, uh, everything in space, everything
Speaker 1: in microgravity, behaves differently. So even though we bring our
Speaker 1: portable cages with us, right, we bring our own artificial environments, um,
Speaker 1: you know in the capsule on the International Space Station, Uh,
Speaker 1: we still have to sort of relearn how to be human.
Speaker 1: So imagine that you have this really poignant moment that
Speaker 1: you're stirring up in your emotions, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: tears begin to well up in your eyes. Well they
Speaker 1: don't just flow down, obviously, because there's no gravity. Instead,
Speaker 1: they just pool atop your eyeballs, growing fatter and more
Speaker 1: obscenely large, until they break off into this big glob
Speaker 1: in front of you and float off. And then somebody
Speaker 1: could conceivably turn around and they're about to say, hey,
Speaker 1: what are you crying about? And then the whole glob
Speaker 1: of your tears just goes into their mouth, that's right,
Speaker 1: and so it becomes this otherworldly experience, right, And I
Speaker 1: imagine that the first couple of times people crying spaces
Speaker 1: probably really fascinating. In fact, I bet that whatever you're
Speaker 1: sad about, you know, that kind of no matter, it
Speaker 1: no longer matters, right, because in front of you is
Speaker 1: this big glob that you can play with. What if
Speaker 1: you were missing gravity, You're crying because you miss gravity
Speaker 1: so much, And then that just makes it all the
Speaker 1: worse because you're like, I can't even cry, like nor
Speaker 1: this is how I cry now. My tears mock me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the video, I'd also um reminded
Speaker 1: me a bit of Dante's Inferno. There's a bit there
Speaker 1: where Dante and Virgil are in the on the frozen
Speaker 1: lake of Casitas at the bottom of Hell, and these
Speaker 1: individuals are are frozen in this lake with their heads
Speaker 1: facing up, so that when they cry out in tears
Speaker 1: and you know, repenting their sins or tears of anger,
Speaker 1: the water pools in their sockets and freezes there. Um.
Speaker 1: Which you know, if you start to think about it,
Speaker 1: if you start to imagine worst case scenarios, you could
Speaker 1: possibly envision in a situation where you're crying in space
Speaker 1: and there's been a temperature failure in the capsule, temperatures
Speaker 1: are plumbering, and those globs of of water in your
Speaker 1: eye sockets could potentially freeesaw, so you get eyeball popsicles. Yeah. Nice. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're exposed to the void itself, then the tears
Speaker 1: will probably just boil off. But that's that's an entirely
Speaker 1: different situation. Yeah, an entirely different episode as well. Uh Well,
Speaker 1: in order for us to really talk about what it's
Speaker 1: like to be human in space exploration, or to relearn
Speaker 1: our humanness and how to deal with it, particularly emotions,
Speaker 1: we should probably talk about space itself and then the
Speaker 1: International Space Station, which is sort of where the grand
Speaker 1: experiment has been playing out. Okay, yeah, Well, space itself,
Speaker 1: the void, the great black yonder as it is, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it is a very hostile environment because one of
Speaker 1: the one of the things we always have to to
Speaker 1: drive home here is that as human beings, we are
Speaker 1: a We're an organism that is evolved to live in
Speaker 1: a very thin layer of even our own atmosphere, in
Speaker 1: our own environment. There are places on Earth that we
Speaker 1: cannot live without the significant technological help. So if you
Speaker 1: take us out of the planet entirely, then you're you've
Speaker 1: taken us into a place of death. Yeah. True. I
Speaker 1: mean we don't think about it because we don't see it.
Speaker 1: But we are dealing with hundreds of pounds of pressure
Speaker 1: in the air, right, We're just kind of used to
Speaker 1: moving around in it. But in space, as we know
Speaker 1: is that it's a vacuum. There is no air pressure.
Speaker 1: Molecules are scant, right. But the way I like to
Speaker 1: think of it is is think back to Star Trek.
Speaker 1: You see William Schattner walking around um and he's he's
Speaker 1: wearing his girdle, of course, and he's very he's very
Speaker 1: confident in his in his torso because that girdle is
Speaker 1: pressing in. And take that girdle away and he's going
Speaker 1: to be very very self conscious, is going to be
Speaker 1: totally put off. Nothing's going to feel right, and he's
Speaker 1: going to have to relearn how he's doing everything around
Speaker 1: the ship because the atmospheric pressure is kind of like
Speaker 1: a girdle pressing in on us all the time, and
Speaker 1: it becomes such a part of who we are and
Speaker 1: how we experienced the world. We we don't even begin
Speaker 1: to register it unless there's a significant change. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because it's hard to divorce yourself from this uh
Speaker 1: notion of air pressure or or even air molecule molecules
Speaker 1: not being present because we think it there's empty air,
Speaker 1: but of course air is not empty. Is it is heavy,
Speaker 1: it is thick, it is pressing in on us and
Speaker 1: spaces an environment where that is not present, and the
Speaker 1: temperature space is at its coold is just the temperature
Speaker 1: of the leftover glow from the Big Bang, the radiation
Speaker 1: known as the cosmic microwave background based the entire universe
Speaker 1: in the temperature of only two point seven kelvin. That's
Speaker 1: less than three degrees above absolute zero or minus four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five degrees fahrenheit. And of course we
Speaker 1: have even more stats about what the environment of space
Speaker 1: is like if you don't happen to have a space suit,
Speaker 1: but that's a separate podcast episode. Tune in for that.
Speaker 1: But if you do have a space suit and your
Speaker 1: destination is the International Space Station, you are luck because
Speaker 1: this is a habitable artificial satellite in low orbit space,
Speaker 1: traveling about seventeen thousand miles plus change an hour in
Speaker 1: order to stay in orbit, making gentle curve around the Earth.
Speaker 1: And it's up there about two miles kios. And when
Speaker 1: you're an orbit like that, things are waitless because they're
Speaker 1: all falling at the same velocity. So, um, we should
Speaker 1: point out that the I S S is actually in
Speaker 1: its thirteenth year. That's right, first module went up in
Speaker 1: we keep adding more to it. Yeah, I keep hearing
Speaker 1: uh descriptions like frailer park or modules that snapped together,
Speaker 1: and well, because that's the only way to do it right.
Speaker 1: You can't take the whole you gotta bring it up
Speaker 1: piece by piece and a symbol it there. It's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of like my my bookshelf here at work.
Speaker 1: Like if I ever lose my job, there's no way
Speaker 1: I'll get all of them home because I brought them
Speaker 1: in a little bit by a little bit by a
Speaker 1: little bit. They would taking like a year to clear
Speaker 1: all of it out. Yeah, it's just and and you know,
Speaker 1: and that and all the other junk. But I've seen
Speaker 1: the cost estimated at around a hundred and fifty billion dollars.
Speaker 1: But then I've also seen people talk about the cost
Speaker 1: of the International Space Station is really being the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that you can't maybe more than the cost,
Speaker 1: but the value. It's it's something you really can't even
Speaker 1: put up a dollar amount on because so much work,
Speaker 1: so much effort has gone into it. It is, uh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of you know, we don't have much in
Speaker 1: the way of super projects today here on Earth, but
Speaker 1: it is. It is basically one of the modern marvels.
Speaker 1: It is. It is like a pyramid for us. It is,
Speaker 1: and there has been a ton of research conducted in
Speaker 1: every expedition actually has certain research goals in mind. So
Speaker 1: not only is it about maintaining that the actual I
Speaker 1: S S, but it's also like, let's let's take a
Speaker 1: look at how X behaves in microgravity or some other experiment.
Speaker 1: In fact, Expedition three five, which is right now the
Speaker 1: the expedition that's in use is um being conducted by
Speaker 1: a six person crew. Again, Chris Hadfield is the commander there,
Speaker 1: and they are using an instrument called the Alpha bagnetic
Speaker 1: Spectrometer two by the way, not one. It is a
Speaker 1: state of the art particle physics detector. And recently in
Speaker 1: the news there was an item about how they've gotten
Speaker 1: a whiff of dark matter the spectrometer, which is really cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's it's right that the I S. S is
Speaker 1: not just a place where astronauts pretend to cry and
Speaker 1: then take videos. It's not just a place where there
Speaker 1: occasionally there's some sort of spat about a toilet going
Speaker 1: off the whack. But it is a place on the
Speaker 1: cutting edge of science. It is, and it is a very,
Speaker 1: as we said, small space of cutting edge science going on.
Speaker 1: We're talking about a living space that amounts to the
Speaker 1: equivalent of roughly one and a half Boeing seven forty seven.
Speaker 1: So let take a listen to what it sounds like
Speaker 1: life aboard I S. S S and to some of the
Speaker 1: ambient noises, so we can get an idea of what
Speaker 1: sort of emotional landscape you might be butting up against
Speaker 1: that if you are an astronaut. Now, I love that
Speaker 1: because that that sounds like a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of music that I actually listened to. Like, I get
Speaker 1: kind of a a pecker meets nurse with wound kind
Speaker 1: of vibe there, a little ambient, a little industrial. It's
Speaker 1: it's nice. Yeah, And those again we sort of take
Speaker 1: uh quietude or you know this when we really want
Speaker 1: quiet in our lives, for granted, because there is a
Speaker 1: way that you can actually get to some sort of
Speaker 1: total silence. Not always right, there's always going to be
Speaker 1: ambient noise. I now a world like that, though I
Speaker 1: would go to sleep to that, would you? I would
Speaker 1: prefer that to absolute silence because absolute silence is just
Speaker 1: a little loud to me. M okay. Actually, you had
Speaker 1: a good block post about that recently, didn't you, Or
Speaker 1: maybe it was on Facebook that you threw that up.
Speaker 1: But there was a room that was sealed, wasn't itbook
Speaker 1: Absolute Science and Silence, and people could not stand it. Correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it can be a little maddening, And so I kind
Speaker 1: like a little white noise or a little music when
Speaker 1: I go to and go to sleep if I can
Speaker 1: get it. I used to. I used to live in
Speaker 1: a a living space where the bedroom is really close
Speaker 1: to the kitchen, and so I could hear the dishwasher
Speaker 1: really well at night, man, and I love that. If
Speaker 1: it were up to me, I'd have the dishwasher in
Speaker 1: the bedroom. Have you seen those toys that are four
Speaker 1: babies that basically have like a white noise um sound
Speaker 1: and it was such a sound like I guess like
Speaker 1: the amnionic fluid rushing through I have not I have
Speaker 1: not heard of it. And there's also a heartbeat setting.
Speaker 1: Is there a berg noise but a digestion noise? No,
Speaker 1: but there should be giddings part because they're probably they
Speaker 1: probably identify that as a as as a friend. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to imagine now, um getting one of those
Speaker 1: uh sleep CDs and it having proper green meat me
Speaker 1: digestion noises on it. Alright, So I mean we're spiraling
Speaker 1: off here, um, losing altitude. Must must climb back up
Speaker 1: realry back in capsule. Alright. So you're on the I
Speaker 1: S S. You're having a bad day. What might a
Speaker 1: bad day be in space? Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it can get really bad if you want to get
Speaker 1: into worst case scenarios, but just thinking about like a
Speaker 1: normal day again, you're in close confines with your co
Speaker 1: workers all the time, floating up in each other's business,
Speaker 1: having to take care that your lunches don't float into
Speaker 1: each other, that there's nothing you know, falling off your
Speaker 1: face or or out of your face that's going to
Speaker 1: float into the next person. It's true, and just the
Speaker 1: act of eating. I've noticed it reminds me of um,
Speaker 1: like broom hockey, Like you kind of have to use
Speaker 1: your hands to direct food into your mouth, you know,
Speaker 1: the goal hole of food. Otherwise, yes, that's going to
Speaker 1: hit your coworker in the face. Yeah. And and thecorum
Speaker 1: kind of goes out of the out the door a
Speaker 1: little bit with the with the with the the eating
Speaker 1: in space like the videos you see, it's a totally
Speaker 1: different sort of philosophy of eating. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: sending things up and catching them and other things. You're
Speaker 1: just slurping out of a little box. It's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Do you like that you can kind of chomp it
Speaker 1: and catch it in your mouth? Um? But yeah, so
Speaker 1: they're they're a little um indignities that could be visited
Speaker 1: upon you, right, I mean not to say nothing else
Speaker 1: of you know, things can get pretty hectic when you
Speaker 1: have situations like oh, something might hit the station and
Speaker 1: we all have to crowd into one capsule just in
Speaker 1: case we lose the station. I mean that it can
Speaker 1: get really stressful as well. Plus they're there are various
Speaker 1: stages that people to to go to when they're exposed
Speaker 1: to micro microgravity first, I mean, first of all, when
Speaker 1: you first step into microgravity UM, you spend the first
Speaker 1: phase of your judney, your journey just adjusting to that
Speaker 1: cramped environment with an upset stomach, headaches, and space most
Speaker 1: space motion sickness. According to NASA's Johnson Space Center, you'll
Speaker 1: also experience a drop in sleep efficiency greatly reduced rim.
Speaker 1: Uh so, in other words, you may experience dream deprivation
Speaker 1: as well. So you're uncomfortable, you're sluggish, and you're still
Speaker 1: having to work with all these people. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard enough to deal with people when you when
Speaker 1: you're just having a trouble getting a full night sleep,
Speaker 1: much less when you have all these other factors going
Speaker 1: on UM and path that it gets even weirder. There's
Speaker 1: like a second stage UM where you'll you'll you'll have
Speaker 1: like a complete adaptation they say, for about six additional weeks.
Speaker 1: So once you passed that first slump, you have kind
Speaker 1: of like the salad weeks there in space. But then
Speaker 1: so you have a sense of euphoria. No, no, not euphoria,
Speaker 1: you're just confident. You're like, all right, I got this.
Speaker 1: I know how to use the bathroom, I know how
Speaker 1: to eat peanut butter in space, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I know how to move through the space without upsetting
Speaker 1: everybody's laptops and everything else. Sleep patterns are decent. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I mean that's a whole area. There's the sleeping,
Speaker 1: because I've seen the One of the things you have
Speaker 1: to remember is when we're sleeping, you you might touch
Speaker 1: your face or whatnot. You might have some other kind
Speaker 1: of sleep issues that could cause some sort of weirdness
Speaker 1: or nightcares. But imagine sleeping and there's you have to
Speaker 1: strap your your arms down because otherwise it'll float up
Speaker 1: and just start pawing at your face during the night. Well,
Speaker 1: it really is it tethered existence. And I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this, is that you tether yourself to sleep. You
Speaker 1: tether all the items that you need so that they're
Speaker 1: available and you can find them. Otherwise everything is just
Speaker 1: floating around. Yeah, you can't just set stuff on the nightstand.
Speaker 1: You've got to have them to tether. Do your body
Speaker 1: or do your bed wrappings. Well, and at this point
Speaker 1: to presumably you have adjusted to the lack of diurnal
Speaker 1: or nocturnal triggers rights the day and night. Um, you
Speaker 1: are beginning to say Okay, so this is a this
Speaker 1: is my brain adjusting to this lack of light, this sunlight,
Speaker 1: and um a lack of touch as well, because this
Speaker 1: is something that's pretty important. We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: It's very comforting to be touched. But obviously you are
Speaker 1: you're with coworkers in the first place. Second of all,
Speaker 1: it's not really you're not a situation where you would
Speaker 1: be cuttling up presumably, And and just imagine too, like
Speaker 1: so you wanted to stay cuttle up without you say,
Speaker 1: we say you had like a nice blanket with you.
Speaker 1: The experience of cuddling up with that blanket would be
Speaker 1: extremely different in microgravity because it imagined like a nice
Speaker 1: heavy blanket, how it sort of sits on you like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to You wouldn't get that because
Speaker 1: the gravity is not not strong enough. That's true, right,
Speaker 1: just even though the most basic thing of having that
Speaker 1: pressure around you is removed. And so in time between
Speaker 1: week six and week twelve, things start to get a
Speaker 1: little moody, typically with people aboard the space station. Russian
Speaker 1: observations found that a number of the symptoms were linked
Speaker 1: to boredom and isolation. You become hyper sensitive, irritable, less motivated.
Speaker 1: You may fly up the handle whenever a crew member
Speaker 1: drifts into your personal space or you know, borrow some
Speaker 1: of your stuff, you know, sort of you know, dorm
Speaker 1: room annoyances uh too and uh and so yeah, you
Speaker 1: get you get more uh sensitivity to allowed noises, uh,
Speaker 1: your your musical preferences may change, uh, exhaustion, sleep disturbances,
Speaker 1: loss of appetite. You might creep back into everything. It
Speaker 1: becomes a very negative time before finally, towards the end
Speaker 1: of your journey, you can expect to experience agitation, lack
Speaker 1: of control and uh. And then it sort of culminates
Speaker 1: with the sense of space euphoria where you finally sort
Speaker 1: of rise above it. So you have this whole um
Speaker 1: sort of journey through the through the various ranges of
Speaker 1: human emotion. There's are huge ups and downs and emotion.
Speaker 1: And of course, uh, those people who are administrating the
Speaker 1: program are very cognizant of this, and obviously they try
Speaker 1: to choose people who are the healthiest mentally. In can
Speaker 1: kind of roll with the punches, right, because if you
Speaker 1: slight someone, or if you're the one who's slighted, you
Speaker 1: cannot go off the handle in this situation. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the crews of sky Lab, NASA's first attempt
Speaker 1: at a space station, became so annoyed with their circumstances,
Speaker 1: uh that they placed that annoyance on mission control during
Speaker 1: their eighty four days in space, and they mutiny need
Speaker 1: they felt, and they turned off all communication. Because again,
Speaker 1: this is a very specific psychological situation. And if you
Speaker 1: need someone to blame, you can either blame each other
Speaker 1: or one another, or you can blame mission control, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you can also blame inanimate objects like I.
Speaker 1: I've certainly stubbed my toe on like coffee tables before,
Speaker 1: and I think if I had an airlock, I would
Speaker 1: have I would have sent the coffee table out the airlock.
Speaker 1: I think the room bout too. The room was blameless. Really,
Speaker 1: I feel like you've turned a corner with Romo, Like
Speaker 1: you were, there were some annoyance with it, and now
Speaker 1: there's love. I don't remember having annoyance with room. Roomba
Speaker 1: requires a certain amount of upkeep and and and PLC
Speaker 1: and and battery life to h to maintain its objectives.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a much more nurturing relationship than people
Speaker 1: tend to think when they first purchased a robotic vacuum cleaner. Well,
Speaker 1: and I suppose the same thing is going on with
Speaker 1: I F S AND's in the same way. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like a giant room, but it's very sensitive and
Speaker 1: you have to keep maintaining. I wonder if anyone ever
Speaker 1: gets annoyed with a coworker and then goes and talks
Speaker 1: to Robina about it, and they're they're just like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Cindy will not shut up, and about the
Speaker 1: batter cats, and so you're just you know, completely over there,
Speaker 1: just trying to robinot about it. Well, that's the thing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, astronauts are basically trained to sort of self soothe,
Speaker 1: and they're they're trained in conflict resolution, because the idea
Speaker 1: is that you don't you want to be able to
Speaker 1: board uh the I S S with as even keel
Speaker 1: and as many tools in your toolbox and dealing with
Speaker 1: others as opposed to um sort of dealing with the
Speaker 1: after effects of that, right because because obviously somebody sulking
Speaker 1: and turning off all communication is not really an option,
Speaker 1: that is that is to be avoided at all costs.
Speaker 1: And I have read to that in instances where there
Speaker 1: are some really dire situations that that astronauts or astronauts
Speaker 1: can then video sort of their complaint and send it
Speaker 1: kind of like MTV reality, like when I think they're
Speaker 1: the precursorvice right, um, and then mission control can review
Speaker 1: it and sort of give feedback. But those are really
Speaker 1: dire situations. The idea is to to board and to
Speaker 1: try to self suthe and to correct yourself as many
Speaker 1: places as possible. So to that end, another tool in
Speaker 1: the toolbox. Uh, well, drugs, right, I mean, medication is
Speaker 1: is certainly extremely helpful um in situations such as this,
Speaker 1: and there are a number of them. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: these are medications that of course deal with just the
Speaker 1: some of the physical symptoms of of of weightlessness that
Speaker 1: deal with nausea or headaches and what have you. Um.
Speaker 1: There are also things to deal with the bone mass.
Speaker 1: But then there are there are also various medications that
Speaker 1: are very homed in on the mind and the mental
Speaker 1: states moti pheno. Right, this is this is a mood enhancement,
Speaker 1: memory improving and mood brightening psychostimulants. So this enhances weightfulness,
Speaker 1: attention capacity, and vigilance, which is really important, right because
Speaker 1: if you're trying to adjust to all of this and
Speaker 1: you have research that you have to conduct, if you
Speaker 1: have a space walk, you want to be alert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all about optimizing their performance, no matter how fatigued
Speaker 1: or cranky they are. So because I mean, it comes
Speaker 1: down to it. If there's something that really needs to
Speaker 1: be done on I s s uh you know, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, potentially life or death, it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you're tired, it doesn't matter if you're
Speaker 1: in a cranky mood. Here, take three of these and
Speaker 1: go do a space wall. Yeah, it's kind of the
Speaker 1: suck it up drug. Alright, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and when we get back, we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about this psychotic contingency plan. All right, we're back. So
Speaker 1: duct tape it's not just something that's super useful here
Speaker 1: on Earth, also in outer space. It turns out, yes, now,
Speaker 1: duct tape it comes in handy in cases of space madness. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, space madness is one of the great tropes
Speaker 1: of of science fiction, the idea that people will go
Speaker 1: into space and they'll they'll go a little mad, and
Speaker 1: there as we've discussed here. There's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: truth to that. It's a it's a it's an environment
Speaker 1: that can tax the human body and the human mind.
Speaker 1: It can force people uh into into places in their
Speaker 1: own minds they're maybe not used to going. Someone could
Speaker 1: conceivably snap. So you see it all the time and
Speaker 1: films people are always experiencing space. Man's to be it
Speaker 1: like Sunshine or Pandorum or I mean, the list goes on.
Speaker 1: People go nuts, they do crazy things, and certainly duct
Speaker 1: tape could be helpful in this case. If you needed
Speaker 1: to duct tape, you're saying, uh, coworkers up and then
Speaker 1: force everyone to have a tea party on the outside
Speaker 1: of the ship. But it's also goodly specific. But it's
Speaker 1: also very useful according to NASA, in dealing with that
Speaker 1: um individual before he or she makes everyone go out
Speaker 1: for a teat party. It's true. So that's why. In
Speaker 1: addition to duct tape, NASA also has tranquilizers on hand
Speaker 1: in case anyone flies off the handle in the serious way.
Speaker 1: According to a two thousand and seven report from the
Speaker 1: a P Associated Press, astronauts keep a few tranquilizers on hand,
Speaker 1: and NASA recommends binding the individual for wrists and ankles
Speaker 1: with duct tapes, strapping them down with a bungee cord,
Speaker 1: and if necessary, sticking them with that tranquilizer. That makes
Speaker 1: me feel better, just to know that there is a
Speaker 1: contingency plan. Yeah, because again it's a high stakes environment
Speaker 1: and if somebody goes off the handle, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of room to deal with them. There's not a break.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to just duct tape them up and
Speaker 1: and settle them down with some some soothing pharmaceuticals. It's true,
Speaker 1: if someone flies off the handle here at hs W headquarters,
Speaker 1: they can just go down to the little store in
Speaker 1: our building. They can get some smarties, banana yea cool
Speaker 1: off a bit. But yeah, outer space, you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of money at stake and a lot of man hours,
Speaker 1: so you can't have the craziness going on. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't just go out for a stroll. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could go out for a stroll, but that's because me
Speaker 1: even more pressure. So that leads us to this next
Speaker 1: sort of idea of how to deal with emotions in space,
Speaker 1: how to deal with our humanness, and that is soothing
Speaker 1: The Savage Beast with music. Yes, I mean music has
Speaker 1: always been a part of our journeys into space. I
Speaker 1: mean that if you've followed my Space music block series
Speaker 1: at all, you'll see that. In addition to me just
Speaker 1: sharing stuff that has very levels of connection to the
Speaker 1: space and space exporation, I I've done a number of
Speaker 1: posts about astronauts bringing up instruments, smuggling instruments aboard, various
Speaker 1: music that has taken place in space or somehow involved
Speaker 1: UM space exploration data in one way or another. And uh,
Speaker 1: and as we've talked about before, music is a powerful
Speaker 1: thing and it can It can really change your mind.
Speaker 1: It can control the way you're feeling, it can dictate
Speaker 1: the way you feel so and also more importantly, it
Speaker 1: is a slice of life on planet Earth that you
Speaker 1: can bring up with you. It's another part of our
Speaker 1: environment that can be taken into this hostile, unreal environment
Speaker 1: and make everything seem a little more normal. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a raft of studies that talk about the
Speaker 1: healing qualities of are the healing properties of music? Just
Speaker 1: recently this week there was an item about how live music,
Speaker 1: in particular played in neonatal intensive care units actually helped
Speaker 1: premium babies to um sort of recover from some of
Speaker 1: those um complications that arise from premature birth much faster.
Speaker 1: So you know, imagine, yes, you are in this environment
Speaker 1: on the I S S. You've got some sensory deprivation
Speaker 1: going on. You're not able to cuddle all the time
Speaker 1: and have that twenty second hug that we know releases
Speaker 1: oxytose and it makes you feel better unless you're going
Speaker 1: and then I don't know how how nice he hugs are,
Speaker 1: or you have your hug shirt on. That's true. You
Speaker 1: can have technology, can you You can. You can bring
Speaker 1: that music with you, you can play it. Chris Hadfield
Speaker 1: actually has a special guitar that he plays on board
Speaker 1: the I S. S Uh. The thing is, you still
Speaker 1: have to try to relearn that right because your hands
Speaker 1: are moving differently. He says that when you're moving fast
Speaker 1: on the neck of the guitar, you often miss the
Speaker 1: threats because on Earth you're used to the weight of
Speaker 1: your arm, which kind of helps you track where your
Speaker 1: hand is going. But without gravity, you overshoot the mark.
Speaker 1: So in this soothing, in this soothing version of music,
Speaker 1: you still I'm sure have a bit of frustration getting
Speaker 1: to that point we're like, Okay, it's going to take
Speaker 1: the week the master playing the guitar again in space.
Speaker 1: But when I do, boy will. What I love about
Speaker 1: this is that here on Earth he probably doesn't even
Speaker 1: rank um. Like, I mean, there's no doubt he doesn't
Speaker 1: even rank among the top guitarists there are. There are
Speaker 1: many great guitarists on Earth, and he's he's been an
Speaker 1: aunt in their shadows. But take the game up into
Speaker 1: orbit and he outclasses them all. I bet everyone else
Speaker 1: would be just fumbling in spacey shreds. Yeah for sure. UM.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing about musical instruments. Uh, any of
Speaker 1: them can be brought up, but for safety, they all
Speaker 1: have to meet certain standards. Yes, which instrument were, like
Speaker 1: an organ would be kind of difficult or yeah, grand
Speaker 1: piano would be sort of difficult to do. UM. So
Speaker 1: for safety, the current electronic keyboard that's on the ISS
Speaker 1: had to be tested to ensure there wasn't a significant
Speaker 1: source of electromagnetic radiation which could throw off the instruments
Speaker 1: on board. UM. And then all instruments have to be
Speaker 1: tested for toxicity, even a trace amount to something like
Speaker 1: an oil based chemical like benzene. Is dangerous for astronauts
Speaker 1: to inhale an enclosed space. Yeah. Like, I think back
Speaker 1: to when I played trumpet in high school and that
Speaker 1: thing was just I mean, it's full of oils and spit.
Speaker 1: I mean, the spit valve is pretty nasty and disturbing
Speaker 1: here on Earth. Imagine an orbit, whereas just you, it's
Speaker 1: just I don't even know where how it would collect.
Speaker 1: I would have to I have have not researched it.
Speaker 1: But now I'm suddenly really interested in trumpet playing in orbit.
Speaker 1: I'm sure someone's brought one up. I bet they got
Speaker 1: a stink I if they played it, though, right, you
Speaker 1: probably have to go in the bathroom cry there and
Speaker 1: then play your trumpet there. Um. Another way that I
Speaker 1: think is really important that we've seen emerge out of
Speaker 1: the I S s UM is this idea of documenting
Speaker 1: your experience is a way to sort of cope with
Speaker 1: the realities. Yeah. This has been a part of NASA's
Speaker 1: plan for a mental stability and space from pretty early on.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, And I think that it's even just
Speaker 1: that these wrote things. This minutia, I think, to me
Speaker 1: sort of gets at least me excited about space exploration.
Speaker 1: Because it really does pull back the curtain. So not
Speaker 1: only does Chris had Feel regularly tweets stunning photos of Earth,
Speaker 1: which in and of itself is glorious to behold. Um,
Speaker 1: he's got his SoundCloud samples as we heard at the
Speaker 1: top of the episode, of just various things in space
Speaker 1: or on the I s s that you hear. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one interesting because it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a soundtrack tor raiser Head, which has lots of crazy
Speaker 1: ambient noises to it. But two really does give you
Speaker 1: insight into to what that existence might be like. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it might just be uh, you know, some sort of
Speaker 1: insight into like how do you deal with fingernail clipping
Speaker 1: in space? But still that is is something that you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, I never thought about that. I never thought
Speaker 1: that just clipping my nails with fly off into the
Speaker 1: face of coworkers, or that you'd have to have a
Speaker 1: special process for that. Well, if you've ever been hit
Speaker 1: in the face by a fingernail flying off of clippers,
Speaker 1: then you know that it can be extremely dangerous. Well,
Speaker 1: you already know how I feel about fingernail clipping in
Speaker 1: the office, so I think you can imagine the sort
Speaker 1: of tackles that would be raised for me if I
Speaker 1: were an astronaut next to someone who was clipping their fingernails.
Speaker 1: But again, this drives home this idea that nothing is
Speaker 1: sort of normal or just wrote or boring in space,
Speaker 1: because everything has to be rethought, relearned and thought about.
Speaker 1: You know, if I can come back to media board
Speaker 1: I S S for a minute. A few years back,
Speaker 1: they actually released a list of the various books, DVDs
Speaker 1: and albums that were available up there, and I imagine
Speaker 1: it's changed since then because now everything is even more
Speaker 1: and more digital. It just doesn't make sense for there
Speaker 1: to be a bunch of physical albums or physical books
Speaker 1: located on the I S S. But some of the
Speaker 1: musical options included, um The Age of Aquarius by the
Speaker 1: Fifth to mention, there was the album American Patriot by
Speaker 1: Lee Greenwood. Are was Woven in Time by Steve green
Speaker 1: There was a College that you could also listen to,
Speaker 1: College Fight Songs Volumes one, two and three, Beethoven Symphony
Speaker 1: Number nine, the Very Best of Staying in the Police
Speaker 1: Elephant by the Black Eyed Peas. It was a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting list. And then when you weren't listening to those musics.
Speaker 1: You could watch a DVD of a brother where art
Speaker 1: thou uh Serenity Sea Lab and you could you could
Speaker 1: also read the likes of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, and so
Speaker 1: that reminds me that it's not just that their astronauts
Speaker 1: up there doing things um in a very autonomous way.
Speaker 1: There is a sort of big brother figure, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, in the form of mission control making
Speaker 1: sure that things are going smoothly. And I thought it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to bring up that they are keeping
Speaker 1: an eye and ear out. In fact, it was a
Speaker 1: Russian support staff remember that spotted that the canary in
Speaker 1: the coal mine during a mission is the cosmonauts speech rhythms,
Speaker 1: because this will tell you early signs of strain. So
Speaker 1: even just monitoring the speech patterns gives mission control an
Speaker 1: idea of what is going on. And in the case
Speaker 1: of the Russian supports staff member, they actually would arrange
Speaker 1: surprise gifts when they heard attention in speech patterns like
Speaker 1: hidden on the on board already in supply ships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then then they would arrange for cheery telephone calls
Speaker 1: from celebrities or you know, from family members, just to
Speaker 1: try to keep everybody's spirits up. Interesting, yeah, the man
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. Yeah. And then there's this idea that
Speaker 1: you can keep your spirits up by focusing on the
Speaker 1: wonder and the awe of it all. Nicole Stott is
Speaker 1: an astronaut, and she said I believe that she was
Speaker 1: in a two thousand and ten mission. She described the
Speaker 1: sense of wonder and awe by saying that one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting things to me is that while I'm
Speaker 1: still in floating, I can feel the reaction or maybe
Speaker 1: better described as a motion through my body from something
Speaker 1: as slight as my heart beat. My heart beats, and
Speaker 1: I can actually feel like this space station is moving
Speaker 1: around me because of it, when in fact it's really
Speaker 1: my whole body gently moving in response to it, and
Speaker 1: not the station motion at all. Well, there you have it,
Speaker 1: life and space, crying in space, emotion and space. Um
Speaker 1: that it does make you think. So let's call over
Speaker 1: our own Robinot to provide us with a little listener mail.
Speaker 1: This first one comes to us from Murphy. Murphy rights
Speaker 1: ten and says, Hi, Robert and Julie. I go to
Speaker 1: school in Boston, and so I ride the elevators every
Speaker 1: day when I ride with other people, I tend to
Speaker 1: act with normal elevator behavior, but when I ride them alone,
Speaker 1: things get a little strange. After the door closes, I
Speaker 1: like to kneel on the ground, then as the elevator
Speaker 1: starts to lift, I stand up on one foot, knee out,
Speaker 1: elbow in, and one arm in the air. I kind
Speaker 1: of hope that if anyone was watching me with X
Speaker 1: ray or something, it would look like I was a
Speaker 1: superhero leaping up off the ground with amazing drink. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I just pay some circles as I go up, and
Speaker 1: other times I face with my back to the door
Speaker 1: and turn around dramatically after it's full open. I love
Speaker 1: the show dirt Pad and stuff. I love everything about that,
Speaker 1: including the sign off being on an elevator alone. It
Speaker 1: does sort of I don't know if there's anything particularly
Speaker 1: weird I do. I guess I'm more prone to to
Speaker 1: move around and sort of bob and weave a little
Speaker 1: bit if I'm caffeinated. Sure, I think all of us do,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe do some personal grooming if there's a mirror, right.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like like when you know when the
Speaker 1: door opens and you don't think anyone's on and then
Speaker 1: you go on. And then but if somebody's already aboard
Speaker 1: and they're like and and so there's this awkward moment
Speaker 1: where they're like, I'm trying to get off, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm sorry, I should have been rushing on
Speaker 1: board the elevator. But then like I kind of judge
Speaker 1: them too, because I feel like you were hiding in
Speaker 1: the shadows or something, you know, like where did you
Speaker 1: come from? You should have been more clearly visible. Why
Speaker 1: weren't you standing right at the door. I challenge you
Speaker 1: next time that happens, to have that discussion with that
Speaker 1: person and be like, you know, I have got to
Speaker 1: talk you about something. Can I pull you aside and
Speaker 1: talk to you about how I feel like you're doing
Speaker 1: this intentionally and hiding in the shadows and what that's
Speaker 1: doing to me emotionally. Al Right, here's another one. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Eric, who writes into us
Speaker 1: pretty regular and says, when I was a kid, my
Speaker 1: dad was part owner of a small plane. We were
Speaker 1: flying at night and I noticed a faint blue ring
Speaker 1: where the prop was. My dad took his hand and
Speaker 1: put it close to the windshield, and tiny bolts of
Speaker 1: lightning shot out of his fingers. I tried it too
Speaker 1: and felt a slight tingling, but it was fun to
Speaker 1: pretend to be Emperor Palpatine. I know St. Almo's fire
Speaker 1: isn't lightning, but it was still cool. I've never been
Speaker 1: struck myself, but it's a subject that fascinates me. There
Speaker 1: was actually a televised soccer game that was struck by lightning.
Speaker 1: It was strange because several players were hurt while several
Speaker 1: were not. Some of the injured players were much farther
Speaker 1: away from where the lightning struck the field than players
Speaker 1: who were not hurt. It was later discovered that only
Speaker 1: the players with both feet on the ground were the
Speaker 1: ones hurt. Eric This just reminded me that one of
Speaker 1: our was Sures I'm very fond of, was was asking
Speaker 1: about us doing an episode on Tonitas, and recently there's
Speaker 1: a news item about the connection between Tonitas and lightning.
Speaker 1: So perhaps something that we want to explore the sort
Speaker 1: of after effects, and we did explore a bit in
Speaker 1: terms of migraines as well. But any who cool, All right, Well, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys know the uh the speel If you would
Speaker 1: like to talk to us about any of this if
Speaker 1: you have some comments about elevators, comments about lightning, comments
Speaker 1: about the the I S s about weightlessness in reality
Speaker 1: or in fiction, your expectations of life in orbit, or
Speaker 1: what do you think about these cool SoundCloud files of
Speaker 1: of ambient noise aboard the I S. Would you be
Speaker 1: able to sleep through that? Or you, like me, would
Speaker 1: you prefer to sleep through that? We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from me. You can find us on Facebook. You can
Speaker 1: find us on tumbler. We are Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind on both of those. You can also find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter, where our handle is below the mind. Also
Speaker 1: find us on YouTube, where we have of all these videos.
Speaker 1: You can find us there is mind Stuff show, but
Speaker 1: also I think Stuff to Blow Your Mind redirects to
Speaker 1: that as well. And hey, we have a website. You
Speaker 1: can find us there at www dot stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Yeah, and uh yeah, that shows
Speaker 1: us in the talkies in those videos which we talk um. Also,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't mind sharing, let us know
Speaker 1: what thing you would miss the most. If you are
Speaker 1: on my s S, you can shoot us an email
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com.