Do astronauts use sedatives be for launch and while in space?
955668
Sedatives would make them less responsive during a portion of the flight where they have to be in top form.
171824
My guess is they are related to feelings of confinement as well as sleep and nutrient deficiencies.  Here is a good explainations of the psychological effects of space exploration -- it sounds like this is what your question is related to.  http://www.ibiblio.org/astrobiology/index.php?page=adapt03
10733
A sedative is a drug that depresses the central nervous system (CNS), which causes calmness, relaxation, reduction of anxiety, sleepiness, slowed breathing, slurred speech, staggering gait, poor judgment, and slow, uncertain reflexes. Sedatives may be referred to as tranquilizers, depressants, anxiolytics, soporifics, sleeping pills, downers, or sedative-hypnotics. At high doses or when they are abused, many of these drugs can cause unconsciousness and death.\n\nSome common sedatives are pentobarbital (Nembutal®,) mephobarbital, (Mebaral®,) secobarbital (Seconal® or Tuinal®,) amobarbital (Amytal®,) and phenobarbital (Luminal®.) Barbiturates are usually bright colored capsules.\n\nSome good sources of information are mentioned below :
148737
Contrary to the above answers, you could smell in space. However you would need a really strong smell to do so. \n\nUs humans need to draw large amounts of the air that  contains an odour through our nose in order to be able to detectit. Space of course contains no air, so to be able to smell anyhting in space the odour itself would need ot be very concentrated.\n\nBut certainly if I opened a bottle of ammonia 3 inches under your nose in space you would smell it just fine.\n\n>>>>>But in space, there is no atmosphere for them to\n>>>>> disperse in, so there is no way for the "smelly"\n>>>>> particles to diffuse to your nose.\n\nUnless the gravity is EXTREMELY dense , the smell is EXTREMELY faint or the the conditions are EXTREMELY cold those molecules will diffuse faster in space thanon Earth.\n\nAs they are liberated from the source they must have achieved vapourisation temperature. Therefore they already have significant velocity. The odour molecules will be colliding with each other and undergoing all the normal interactions. As they disperse more the velocity will remin unaltered but the movement will become linear rather than random brownian movement as they cease to interact. But that would only make the dispersion faster, not slower.\n\nIf you don't believe me consider this. If you placed a bowl of water on the surface of the moon what would happen?  If lack of an atmoosphere stops volatile molecules from dispersing how does the water evaporate in space? Now what would happen if you placed a small amount of ammonia in that water? If the ammonia molecules are dispersing far enough to allow evaporation then why would they not disperse further?\n\nFor all those who said that you can not smell in space this is the critical quetsion to answer. If you accept that ammonia, chlorine and other odoriferous materials can evaporate in space why dont you also believe they are capable of diffusing?\n\nAnd if you believe they are capable of diffusing why do you believe the ofactory glands couldn't react to them?\n\nAnd if you believe the olfactory glands could react to them wwhy do you believe that the neurons couldn't pass that to the brain?\n_______\n>>>>>This answer more pretains to solid 'smell' particles\n>>>>> rather than 'smelly' gasses.\n\nI'm not quite sure what that means. The only 'solid smell particles' are things like smoke. I'd guess that 99.9% of the odours humans detect are gaseous: perfume, ammonia, body adour, food and so sorth. All are caused by volatile materials, ie they exist as gas when we smell them.\n\nYou are correct that the tiny number of odours actually caused suspended solid particles could not travel readily in a vacuum. But most odours would travel further and faster in a vacuum.
261571
The astronaut actually has to pass his own gas to stay warm in space :).. \nok seriously To work in the open cargo bay of the space shuttle or in space, astronauts wear the shuttle extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuit and they are kept warm by their own bodies heat because of the well insulation and design of the EMU
63943
Someone evil.  That stuff is NASTY. I grew up in the 70's and had to drink that swill all the time.  But, ya, was invented for the space program.  Had to punish the astronauts while they were in space, isupose, so they would remember what it was like to be mere mortals.  Astronauts were treated, well, different after they came back.  Like shiny golden gods of the cosmose.  I'm thinking the frereze dired ice cream and meat in a tube were just ways of reminding themthey were still mortals. Ok, just kidding.
355056
Are you sure you want to know? It's realllly gross... and I'm serious about this! Each astronaut has a different attachment to put on a sort of hose/tube thing, and these attachments are nicknamed, by NASA, "Mr. Thirsty" and "Mrs. Thirsty"... yeah I swear I didn't make that up. Told you it's gross. The "Thirsty"s are sort of like suction cups, and so they sort of attach, um, there... yeah... I think they might kind of do a vacuum thing, too, so that urine doesn't end up floating around the space station or shuttle.\nSorry 'bout the gross facts. I think there is also a "Hungry" couple, but I'm not sure.
980237
Since its a manned flight, the space craft being heavier, it would take at least eight months or more. However, like correctly pointed out by Christoph... N, it would be a very painful ride for the space passenger. The radiations and the athropy of the muscles & bones would cause a lot of discomfort.
306678
xanax is for nerves , and vicodin is for pain .If it were me (which it will be in 3 weeks! ) I'd take 2 of each 1hr BEFORE takeoff , 1 of each - midflight , and 2 of each 1 hr BEFORE landing . \n Doses for 150 lb male , 4 hr flight .\nSame doses were used @ sea level with moderate euphoria being the desired  and achieved side effect . Equal amounts of water and cranberry juice were used during and afterward to cleanse the body of excess chemicals .
871827
1) Twelve 12 American astronauts have walked on the moon.\n\nApollo 11: Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin\nApollo 12: Pete Conrad & Alan Bean\nApollo 13: << failed to land on the moon >>\nApollo 14: Alan Shepard & Edgar (Ed) Mitchell\nApollo 15: David Scott & James Irwin\nApollo 16: John Young & Charles Duke\nApollo 17: Eugene (Gene) Cernan & Harrison Schmidt\n\n\n2) Why haven't we been back?  \n\na) American astronauts visited the moon on six occasions.\n\nb) The "moon race" was an extension of the cold war. It was mostly about national prestige. We got there first and achieved our primary objective. There was some good science: surveys, measurements, sample collection. But it was mostly about being there first. Once we achieved our primary objective, there was no political will to go back. There still isn't.  Perhaps, if we discover He3 or something else valuable, there will be.\n\nc) I used to travel to Crested Butte, Colorado every year to ski. Because I don't go anymore, does it mean that I never went?\n\n\n3) What about the Van Allen radiation belts?  Wouldn't it have killed the astronauts?\n\nThe existence of the Van Allen radiation belts postulated in the 1940s by Nicholas Christofilos.  Their existence was confirmed in *1958* by the Explorer I satellite launched by the USA. \n\nThe radiation in the Van Allen radiation belts is not particularly strong.  You would have to hang out there for a week or so in order to get radiation sickness.  And, because the radiation is not particularly strong, a few millimeters of metal is all that is required for protection.  "An object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per *year*."\n\n"In practice, Apollo astronauts who travelled to the moon spent very little time in the belts and received a harmless dose. [6]. Nevertheless NASA deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimise the radiation."  When the astronauts returned to Earth, their dosimeters showed that they had received about as much radiation as a couple of medical X-rays.\n\n\n4) The U.S. government scammed everyone?  \n\nIn 1972, there was a politically motivated burglary of a hotel room in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. There were only about six or eight people who knew about it. However, those people, including Richard M. Nixon, the President of the United States, failed to keep that burglary a secret. It exploded into a scandal that drove the President and a number of others from office.\n\nIf six or eight people couldn't keep a hotel room burglary a secret, then how could literally thousands of people could have kept their mouths shut about six faked moon landings? Not just one moon landing, but six of them!\n\n\n5) What about the USSR?  \n\nEven if NASA and other government agencies could have faked the six moon landings well enough to fool the general public, they could NOT have fooled the space agency or military intelligence types in the USSR. The Soviets were just dying to beat us. If the landings were faked, the Soviets would have re-engineered their N-1 booster and landed on the moon just to prove what liars Americans are. Why didn't they? Because the landings were real and the Soviets knew it.\n\n\n6) Why does the flag shake?  Where are the stars?  Who took the video of Neil Armstrong? \n\nTake a look at the first two websites listed below.  They deal well with all of the technical questions.\n\n\n7) Finally, please tell us what you would accept as definitive evidence that the six moon landings were real. Is there anything?
64415
Yes, U.S. astronauts have always been able to defend themselves. Alien spacecraft carry a huge arsenal of evil weapons, from the tinest microscopic particle beam accelerators to those gigantic antimatter laser canons with concentric helical eviscerators.  Facing such a threat, why shouldn't we defend ourselves? \n \np.s. This information is on the Internet.  Go see for yourself.
988096
No space suits are worm, infact tubing has to be run inside the space suit with water running through it to keep the astronaut cool. A space suit is like a mini space ship, it is completly closed from space and there is now were for your body heat to go.So without the water filled tubing you would cook in the suit.
890530
This is actually a good question, because all the shuttle deaths we heard about occurred while going into or down from space.  However, in 1971, three Russian cosmonauts of Soyuz 11 were killed by exposure to vacuum after undocking from space station Salyut 1 when a valve accidently opened.  Their craft subsequently landed normally, but a recovery crew discovered their dead bodies.
725854
Liquid Breathing\n\nA lot of you I am sure have seen the movie "The Abyss". If not then it doesn't matter but what is important however, is one of the diving techniques that they use. This technique is called Liquid Breathing. Until not long ago, people thought that this was fictitious and was not possible but in fact it has been around for a lot longer than you might think!\n\nThe general type of liquid used by the US Navy and other Navies in the world generally have a perfluorocarbon type composition. The type of halide attached onto the molecule depends but it is either fluorine or bromine. However, the only problem associated with using bromine is that it is a very strong greenhouse gas but it could be regenerated through special filters and rebreathers.\n\nADVANTAGES\n\nIt  seems like an odd concept but:\n\n1- Due to its density, Liquivent (marketed name for liquid breathing liquid) can carry as much as 25 times as much oxygen than blood and it has enormous potential for patients with lung and breathing disorders. \n\n2- If fluid is taken into the lungs whilst diving, then the pressure in the body could match that of the pressure of the surrounding water. Thus breathing would be easier and lower concentrations would only be needed. \n\n3- Thus, this would also eliminate the need for decompression and its inherent problems i.e. nitrogen narcosis and the bends.\n\n4- A given volume of oxygen-saturated fluorocarbon contains 3 times as much oxygen as the same volume of air or whole blood.\n\n5- According to the movie "The Abyss", the deepest suit dive was to 4800ft which is equivalent to about 300atmospheres of pressure! Tests with mice have been done at pressures of up to 8000ft.\n\nHISTORY\n\nThis concept originated in the mid 60's when Dr Kylstra a physiologist realised that salt solutions could be saturated with oxygen at high pressures. However, after several experiments he concluded that this mixture becomes toxic due to the build up of carbon dioxide. Therefore, a new mixture that could be saturated with oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide quickly and efficiently had to be thought of.\n\nAfter further experimentation in 1969, Dr Clark realised that oxygen and carbon dioxide were very soluble in fluorocarbon liquids like freon. Assuming the lungs could cope with this material, Dr Clark figured that these fluorocarbons could support respiration of animals.\n\nLater developments\n\nDuring later years, the techniques of liquid breathing were constantly refined and improved. The survival rate of all the tested animals in recent years has been very high, thanks mainly to improvements in carbon dioxide elimination. Current liquids used can dissolve over 65 ml of oxygen and 228 ml of carbon dioxide per 100 ml perfluorocarbon. By the early 1990s this procedure was developed:-\n\n   1. The animal was anesthetized with intravenous sodium thiopental.\n   2. The animal was put on its back. A tube was placed down its airway, ready for the liquid breathing medium.\n   3. A blood sample was taken. The temperature of the liquid was adjusted correspondingly. It was no longer necessary to make the animals hypothermic.\n   4. The perfluorocarbon was instilled into the animal's lungs through the tube.\n   5. A floor-mounted 3-litre reservoir was filled with the perfluorocarbon. The liquid was driven by a pump through a series of machines which warmed and oxygenated the liquid and took the carbon dioxide out of it. The liquid flowed through a tube into a 3-way pneumatic valve which directed flow to the animal. A computer controlled the inspiration (18 ml of fluid per second), pumping the liquid into the animal's lungs, then back out again to the reservoir, at a rate of about 6 complete respirations per minute.\n   6. At the end of the test, the animal was tilted for about 15 seconds and the perfluorocarbon was allowed to drain from the lungs. This can be seen in the film The Abyss where Ensign Monk drain
488798
Hi:\n\nNASA mostly use hydrogen and oxygen or tri-nictro-oxide in the liquid stages of their rockets and ammonium Nitric or some other solid state fuel that similar to gun cotton for the solid rocket booster. However in the early day of rocketry; they use any liquid fuel that would combined with liquid oxygen, Such gasoline,100 proof grain alcohol,Kerosene, fuel oil. and gunpowder or gun cotton for solid rockets Today however they mostly use hydrogen and oxygen for the liquid fuel rockets. What type of fuel they put into their rocket depend on how much weight their payload is; and how high they want it to go, and if they are visiting the planets in our solar system this as to be accounted for too.\n\nBack in the 1950,s and 1960's NASA had developed a Nuclear rocket engine under a project name: "Project Pluto" where liquid hydrogen was heated by a nuclear reactor to produce  a rocket thrust to propel a spacecraft in space. It fell out favor with the public due to radiation issues. There is a new type of rocket that uses ion propulsion where a gas such a hydrogen or Xenon gas is ionized and run ed through a series of electrically charge grids and are accelerated to very velocity as they exit the spacecraft And then there is:  The Antimatter and Matter rocket engine this where Matter and Antimatter is allow to mix in certain ratio in a rocket reactor vessel and focused by magnetic field to generate a lot of thrust
1174898
Not all the time, but a fair amount.  While in space, your muscles will begin to deteriorate and weaken.  This isn't a big problem while you're actually in space, but when you return to Earth's gravity, you'd be flopping around like a fish.  To prevent this, astronauts follow a strict physical fitness regiment to preserve their muscle quality.  They also only stay in space for a short amount of time (few months to a year tops) to prevent any permanent physical damage.
272840
They got about as much radiation as you would from a couple of chest x-rays. That´s alot but not enough to cause radiation sickness. They got the biggest dose while travelling through the Van Allen belt but they only spent a total of 4 hours there per trip. \n\n(Several astronauts went to the moon and through the Van Allen belt more than once. John Watts Young not only flew to the moon twice, he was also a Gemini pilot and a space shuttle pilot. Despite all that radiation he is alive and well today. He retired from NASA in 2004 having flown 4 different space vehicles in his 42 year career.)\n\nWhile en route to the moon the astronauts reported seeing bright flashes on occasion, even while keeping their eyes shut. This was later explained by high energy particles slamming into their eyeballs. Naturally their entire bodies would have gotten exposed to radiation, as the lunarmodules didn´t offer much protection, but none of them suffered any direct ill effects from radiation while in space. (They weren´t exposed directly to the radiation from the sun however. That radiation is just composed mainly out of photons (light) for which the lunarmodule and the astronauts spacesuits provided ample protection. High energy particles (cosmic radiation) are composed mainly out of protons (83%) and helium nucleii (12%)).\n\nThe early astronauts were selected through alot of testing and health criteria. They weren´t called "the right stuff" for nothing (Pete Conrad died at the age of 69 in a bike accident!). They were able to cope better under difficult conditions than most of us. Still some of them have gotten cancer and died.\n\nAlan Shephard (Apollo 13 and 14) died in 1998 from leukemia\nJack Swigert (Apollo 13) died 1982 from bone cancer