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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. This

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Speaker 1: is Alison I don't Milk, the science editor at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science

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Speaker 1: rider how stuff works dot com. And uh, this time

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Speaker 1: we're talking about space drugs. Alison, you've seen Dune, right film? Yes,

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Speaker 1: of course, yes, sure? Okay, do you remember that they

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Speaker 1: had the whole bit with the with the spice right melange, Yes,

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Speaker 1: they got it. They That's also the name of the

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Speaker 1: place that cuts my hair. I wonder if it was inspired.

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Speaker 1: Um okay, no sand worms there or anything. No, but

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Speaker 1: they do have some good stylus. I wish I well,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna I wish I'd known about that earlier. I

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Speaker 1: would have come up with a lot of jokes about

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Speaker 1: um hair LANs on Dune. But but anyway, the like

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Speaker 1: I said, the Dune centers around a drug, this fantastic

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Speaker 1: space drug that people take so they can see into

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Speaker 1: the future and and by seeing into the future, dodge

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Speaker 1: catastrophe while piloting giant spaceships through the stars. And of course,

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Speaker 1: science fiction drugs have no side effects, right, Oh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know they sometimes they do well well, like the

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Speaker 1: the Spices side effects end up with those blue eyes

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Speaker 1: and yeah, and then you can't then you're hooked on it.

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Speaker 1: You can never stop taking it. Um. But yeah, they

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Speaker 1: tend to have more fantastic um aspects to them. You know,

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Speaker 1: it will be something that allows you to see into

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Speaker 1: the future or it allows you to live forever. Um. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There are some of them a little more mundane, like

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Speaker 1: the Dune also has a drug called Simuda, which is

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Speaker 1: all about just enjoying music a lot, which I think

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Speaker 1: we probably have some of those here on earth. So

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Speaker 1: heightening your appreciation for something, you say, like ecstasy might yeah,

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Speaker 1: or you know or how you know, some some movies

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Speaker 1: look like you see it and you're like, how how

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Speaker 1: high were the people who made this film? Like, you know,

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Speaker 1: how high would you have Arizona to enjoy that? That's

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Speaker 1: a great comedy, that's a great film. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess that's more one of those not how high

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Speaker 1: were they to make this film, but just how like

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Speaker 1: Matt yet to appreciate the film. Well, you can appreciate

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Speaker 1: that film anyway. Um. So back to science fiction, Yes,

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Speaker 1: they're there are tons of amazing amazing drug show up

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Speaker 1: dunes just one example. There's stuff like so Mach and

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Speaker 1: the Worthy Chronicle, Merge nine and Altered Carbon SOMA and

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Speaker 1: and phs um nose dive and heavy metal. Um, what's that?

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Speaker 1: What's that? Nose dive? It's a you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: actually remember nose dive all the well heavy metals with

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Speaker 1: the cartoon. Did you see heavy metal? Okay? Um? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Plutonium Nyborg was the name of it, and I think

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Speaker 1: it was like this space cocaine. There's also a one

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Speaker 1: Cheech and Chong movie where they had something called space coke,

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Speaker 1: which was supposedly like super coke, came from space. That's

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Speaker 1: my understanding. I have not seen that one. Um. Then

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Speaker 1: like Philip K. Dick of course came up with a

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Speaker 1: really weird one in the Three Stigma of Palmer Eldrick Um,

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Speaker 1: and that was something called candy, which allowed space colonists

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Speaker 1: to really get involved with their doll collection. Like they

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Speaker 1: would have these little dolls that lived in these little houses,

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Speaker 1: and they would take the candy and they would like

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Speaker 1: really um connect with the dolls and the dolls like

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Speaker 1: you know the game, the video game the Sims. Well,

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Speaker 1: imagine like a drug that created the effect that people

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Speaker 1: were having when the SIMS first came out. So there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of drugs in science fiction and gaming

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Speaker 1: and actually in space though right, yes, as it turns

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Speaker 1: out in real life, um science fiction aside, we do

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Speaker 1: have some drug use in space, which is perfectly normal

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Speaker 1: because we have drug use all over the place on Earth,

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Speaker 1: just on an everyday, perfectly legal, perfectly normal basis, from

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Speaker 1: the caffeine I take in the morning to you know,

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Speaker 1: a glass of red wine you enjoy with dinner, yes,

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Speaker 1: the aspirin in the afternoon, and then you know, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: So so what what kind of what kind of drugs

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Speaker 1: do we have in space? What? What do you have?

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Speaker 1: Let's start off with a pretty popular one here on Earth, booze.

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Speaker 1: So coffee, as Robert alluded to, actually is available in space,

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Speaker 1: but alcohol is really more of a gray area. Um.

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Speaker 1: So let's look back in history in good old buzz

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Speaker 1: consumed uh communion wine on the moon, and if you

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Speaker 1: believe some of the stories, the Russian Mirror space station

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Speaker 1: was perhaps perhaps had its fair share of vodka. Some

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Speaker 1: people make that claim. Some people make that claim. And

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Speaker 1: then while the I S s the International Space Station

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Speaker 1: is technically a dry operation, similar to some dry counties, saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, Georgia. Uh NASA came under scrutiny back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand seven because there are these reports that astronauts

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Speaker 1: were hitting the bottle before takeoff. And I have to say,

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Speaker 1: if I were an astronaut about to take off, I

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Speaker 1: might be inclined to hit the bottle too, So I'm

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Speaker 1: not very much kind of condemned them. It kind of

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Speaker 1: takes the edge off of But then again, alcohol does

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Speaker 1: mess with your ability is a bit, so you're really

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Speaker 1: not gonna want an astronaut drinking alcohol probably before takeoff

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Speaker 1: and the pr disaster if they were to get pulled

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Speaker 1: over about halfway up. So they're actually um in addition

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Speaker 1: to perhaps hitting the bottle before takeoff, they've even um

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Speaker 1: done some brewing of space bears. Yeah. According to new scientists,

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Speaker 1: there's a University of Colorado student with who got a

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Speaker 1: little help from CORES, and the student actually sent a

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Speaker 1: miniature brewing kit into orbit as part of a thesis

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Speaker 1: on fermentation in space. So you might wonder how it

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Speaker 1: turned out. Apparently it was pretty foul. Yeah, did you

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Speaker 1: give people superpowers? I'm guessing it gave people superpowers. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess the thing about gravity is uh, it's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of nice on earth, but it actually gives a

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Speaker 1: good head on your point anyway, Oh wow, I had

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Speaker 1: not thought of that. Well, moving away from beer to

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Speaker 1: something a little more druggy, if you will, is uh

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Speaker 1: is a motive phenyl, which is pretty interesting. Um and

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Speaker 1: this is you may you may know a variety of

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Speaker 1: this as a provigial um or mode alert, but motive

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Speaker 1: phenel is basically an upper that you can tell that

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Speaker 1: that they have available for astronauts. According to the Good

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Speaker 1: Drug Guide, it is quote a memory improving and mood

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Speaker 1: brightening psycho stimulant that quote enhances wakefulness, attention capacity, and visualist.

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Speaker 1: So basically, the deal is, if you're in space, sometimes

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Speaker 1: a lot of work will come up, you know, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you have to fix the portal or the or the

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Speaker 1: engine or something, and if it doesn't get fixed then

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Speaker 1: you might die or or millions and millions and millions

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Speaker 1: of dollars of equipment is going to be damaged, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: So there comes a time where you've got to stay awake.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of kind of like when you're on that

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Speaker 1: long car drive you know. And no, but I'm saying,

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Speaker 1: you know how you're on that car drive in and

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Speaker 1: it's like you're starting to fall asleep, right, and if

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Speaker 1: you keep driving while you're falling asleep, then there's a

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Speaker 1: good chance you're gonna die. But you have that you

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Speaker 1: often have the option of say pulling over or stopping,

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Speaker 1: you know. So this is the equivalent of stopping at

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Speaker 1: the truck stop and getting one of those six hour

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Speaker 1: energy drinks, except this is apparently like a really good

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Speaker 1: six hour energy drink, then enables that it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: It doesn't have much in the way of like jeittariness

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Speaker 1: um as a side effect, and it's all aimed at

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Speaker 1: like keeping keeping the astrodaun alert on task and doing

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Speaker 1: whatever it needs to be done to accomplish that mission

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Speaker 1: and keep everything functional. Not quite as exciting as an

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Speaker 1: upper is a drug that's designed to prevent bone mass loss,

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Speaker 1: and this particular one is called zilla dronate. And as

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Speaker 1: you guys know, bone mass loss is a big problem

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Speaker 1: in space, so it's only natural that scientists have figured

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Speaker 1: out a way to combat bone mass loss. Originally, zilladronate

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Speaker 1: was used to prevent secondary bone tumors and conservations. But

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Speaker 1: according to a report on bioed online, the drug should

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Speaker 1: promise a few years back um as a means of

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Speaker 1: slowing bone mass loss in space. So NASA's still looking

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Speaker 1: into it. Looks like the jury is still out on

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Speaker 1: this particular drug. We we've we've developed a number of

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Speaker 1: technologies just try and combat bone lass, bone mass loss

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Speaker 1: and space, everything from the like the Stephen Colvert treadmill

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Speaker 1: to h I think it's called a penguin suit that

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Speaker 1: the Russians worked on years and years back, and it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like a mechanical uh suit you would wear

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Speaker 1: um had like elastic in it and all that. It

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Speaker 1: would basically make all your movements would be definitely sert

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Speaker 1: more energy to perform them. Oh yeah, I didn't Susanne

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Speaker 1: Summers and make a version of that on the Tunk

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Speaker 1: Shopping Network yet Wow, and like like a Suzanne Summers

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Speaker 1: power suit. Um no, I'd use she did not? Did

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Speaker 1: she know? Okay, because because anybody listening to this probably

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Speaker 1: is just about to hit YouTube for that, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to run out and hit YouTube for that. Susanne Summers

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Speaker 1: and a mechanized power suit running amuck on a TV set,

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Speaker 1: So on your bone mass space drugs, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: imagine anybody abusing them on Earth. Uh. It's a different

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Speaker 1: case with something called scopel amine. So another thing about

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Speaker 1: being in a witless environment is sometimes serious stomach gets

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Speaker 1: a little upset. Sometimes you might vomit, and vomitating in

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Speaker 1: space is not a good thing at all. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: just you can imagine it. Yeah, little bits just the

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Speaker 1: in the sheer projectile of it. We just you know,

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Speaker 1: cover the entire station. So you don't want it to

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Speaker 1: happen um for any number of reasons. So they have

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Speaker 1: this thing called the scope decks UH. And this is

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Speaker 1: a speedy cocktail of scope al amine and dexidrine and UH.

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Speaker 1: Together these combat nausea all right on Earth though. Scope

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Speaker 1: al amine is also known as burn danga and it

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Speaker 1: is a powerful sedative extracted for the from the Rugmansia.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing at that one flower which is native to Colombia,

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Speaker 1: okay um and it's u commonly used as a central

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Speaker 1: nervous system to present UH in patform to treat nausea,

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Speaker 1: sea sickness, motion sickness, and less commonly in treatments of

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Speaker 1: parkinson symptoms and in uh uh and as as an aesthetic.

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Speaker 1: But where it's abused. You see some cases where it's

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Speaker 1: abused though in Colombia, because if taken in high enough doses,

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Speaker 1: it apparently creates this kind of kind of continuing to

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Speaker 1: a zombie. And there have been cases where someone has

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Speaker 1: been dosed with this uh this particular drug and then

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Speaker 1: somebody has taken advantage of them, like you know, robbed them,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Is it kind of like a rufie, kind

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Speaker 1: of like a rufie. Yeah, um, it just kind of

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Speaker 1: makes you susceptible to whatever. In fact, the c I

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Speaker 1: a Um apparently experimented with it in the sixties to

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Speaker 1: see if it could be used as like a truth

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Speaker 1: serum um. Now, there's also a lot of urban legends

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Speaker 1: surrounding this, Like I think there have been I've read

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Speaker 1: that there there have been emails going around saying if

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Speaker 1: you go to Columbia, don't take a business card from

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Speaker 1: anybody because they're lacing the business cards with drugs and

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Speaker 1: if you take it will be turned into their slave

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Speaker 1: for years. And that's probably not the case. And also

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Speaker 1: there's ah, it's it's also an easy scapegoat. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like, oh, I accidentally stayed out all night.

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Speaker 1: Oh somebody scope of mean me. That's why that's where

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Speaker 1: my money went and the evening so um so yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's at once an excellent means of fighting nausea

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Speaker 1: in space, and it's also known as the devil's breath

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Speaker 1: in Columbia, where it can be used to take advantage

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Speaker 1: of people. Interesting, I've not heard of that one. So

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Speaker 1: also in space, you're gonna encounter vomit and lunar dust.

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Speaker 1: And lunar dust is a huge nuisance. And why well,

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Speaker 1: because you have a lot of sensitive equipment up in

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Speaker 1: space and it can damage it, especially on the Moon.

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Speaker 1: That's where the lunar dust really becomes a problem. Good point, Robert. Um.

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Speaker 1: If the lunar doest coach your space suit, for example, Um,

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Speaker 1: you can absorb enough solar energy to basically be baked.

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Speaker 1: That really shocked me when I first learned about that.

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Speaker 1: I just had put one and two together on that one.

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Speaker 1: And then the National Space Biomedical Research Institute n s

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Speaker 1: r B AT n s r b r I has

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Speaker 1: also pointed out that if you track lunar dust into

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Speaker 1: a low gravity lunar base, it could wind up inside

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Speaker 1: our lungs and that would be bad. According to Science Daily,

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Speaker 1: there are no known illnesses due to lunar dust exposure,

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Speaker 1: but it has a lot in common with fresh fractured courts,

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Speaker 1: and this is a highly toxic substance. So the long

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Speaker 1: term effects of lunar dust could be could be pretty bad,

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Speaker 1: and so leading researchers at this n s R b

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Speaker 1: r I Institute have proposed use of target drugs to

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Speaker 1: minimize the effect of these tiny particles being suspended in

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Speaker 1: our lungs, Which is basically a way of saying that

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Speaker 1: they're worried about lunar dust inner lungs and they're trying

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Speaker 1: to figure out ways that it doesn't happen for the astronauts.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they have to deal with enough in space.

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Speaker 1: Why should they have to deal actually go back to

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Speaker 1: the Moon for that to be a problem. So that

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Speaker 1: the research maybe put on the back burner. And now

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Speaker 1: you get the out, you get the next exciting drug.

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Speaker 1: I get stuck with the bone mass loss and the

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Speaker 1: lunar dusk, and you get stuff like tranquilizers. Well, um, hey,

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Speaker 1: I didn't divide him up or well I guess they did,

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Speaker 1: but still, um, yeah, the next one is tranquilizers. Um,

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Speaker 1: and this is this is really awesome. UM. You know,

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Speaker 1: you read a lot about people going crazy in space,

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Speaker 1: or I mean I read a lot about people going

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Speaker 1: crazy in space. You've probably not so much. But um,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, it's something we have to actually, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, keep on the radar because it's a high streel.

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Speaker 1: It's just very stressful situation up there, and if somebody

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Speaker 1: loses it. Um, you know, it's a very small environment.

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Speaker 1: You know a lot of people are You're gonna everybody's

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Speaker 1: gonna have to hang around the crazy person. The crazy

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Speaker 1: person is going to be around a lot of sensitive equipment. UM,

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Speaker 1: so they're gonna have to bring them under control. So

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Speaker 1: NASA actually, according to a two thousand seven report from

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Speaker 1: Associated Press, NASA actually keeps a few trunks on hand

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Speaker 1: just in case anyone goes crazy, um or you know,

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Speaker 1: become suicide or so I cotting. NASA recommends binding the

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Speaker 1: individual's wrist and ankles with duct tape, strapping them down

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Speaker 1: with a bungee cord, and if necessary, sticking them with

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Speaker 1: a tranquilizer just to knock them out. I think that's

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Speaker 1: good to know that they have some of those on hand.

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Speaker 1: And the duct tape, the duck course, the duct tape

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Speaker 1: can come in handy just about for anything. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they used it to fix fixed lunar rovers um and

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Speaker 1: that goes back to the space dust Actually remember this story, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: where the mud flap or the dust flaps I guess, oh,

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Speaker 1: and the lunar rover. So the dust flap fell off

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Speaker 1: and they realized that we, you know, hey, we can't

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Speaker 1: drive this around because it's gonna shoot all this uh

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Speaker 1: this lunar dust up and it's gonna harm equipment, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: So they were able to take a believe, uh, some

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Speaker 1: maps that they had they were like laminated, and then

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Speaker 1: between that and duct tape, they built new mud flaps.

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Speaker 1: So duct tape ever the space traveler's friend. So it's

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Speaker 1: not just that astronauts maybe taking ducks in space, but

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Speaker 1: scientists are also interested in using space as a sort

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Speaker 1: of laboratory for figuring out new drugs, and in a

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Speaker 1: far more advanced way than the than the beer experiment

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Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier. Yeah, space has long been heralded

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Speaker 1: as a frontier for drug development. So NASA, for example,

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Speaker 1: has done experiments to study the three D growth of

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Speaker 1: these protein crystals in microgravity, and they were basically hoping

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Speaker 1: that the structure would help drug designers develop new treatments

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Speaker 1: that target specific diseases. But the long and short of

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Speaker 1: it is that in space, in microgravity, the biological systems

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Speaker 1: UM made you funky things that they don't in fact

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Speaker 1: do on Earth interrestrial laboratories. So that's why space proves

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Speaker 1: a handy laboratory for for drug development. And the other

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Speaker 1: the flip side of that is that NASA's has observed

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Speaker 1: that the effectiveness of some drugs decreases after travel aboard

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Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle UM or time spent aboard the I

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Speaker 1: S S. So that's kind of another obstacle to man's

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Speaker 1: deep space exploration. So if you're developing all these drugs,

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Speaker 1: but then you're in space for a while there, right,

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Speaker 1: you're not gonna have enough anti vomit medication to get

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Speaker 1: you all the way to your distant planet destination. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: those are some of the the real life drugs that

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Speaker 1: one might encounter in orbit and beyond UM. And you know,

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Speaker 1: if we you know, come back to for a second

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Speaker 1: to the science fiction stuff at the beginning, it's like

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Speaker 1: any time you encounter these crazy fantastic space drugs, it

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Speaker 1: seems like a lot of the time it's something that

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Speaker 1: uh that people encounter on a different planet. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's like it's the it's the melange um that you know,

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Speaker 1: it's created by the sand worms or um. Clark Ashton

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Speaker 1: Smith had at the story called the Plutonium drug that

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Speaker 1: was where you know, this was this was written um

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Speaker 1: decades and decades ago, uh and envisioned like finding plants

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Speaker 1: on Mars and getting a drug from that, and some

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Speaker 1: sort of growth on Pluto and getting a drug from that.

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Speaker 1: In reality, I mean, we haven't actually found any planets

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Speaker 1: that have anything you can't even conceivably like life, So

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Speaker 1: we're not we're probably not gonna be fined any space

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Speaker 1: drugs of that nature anytime soon. But clearly as long

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Speaker 1: as UH as humans are going to continue to be

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Speaker 1: going into space, we're going to look for UM all

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Speaker 1: sorts of Earthbound and Up and the Space Grown Drugs

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Speaker 1: album out. So if you have a question on space

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Speaker 1: on astronauts and drugs or astronauts in space on drugs,

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Speaker 1: send us an email at Science Stuff at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics because at how stuff works dot com. Want

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