Astronauts face unique health challenges during spaceflight. While radiation exposure, bone density loss, and vision changes are frequently discussed, a less talked-about concern is motion sickness. This unsettling ailment can strike both in orbit and during crucial splashdown landings, hindering crew safety and operations.
Most people experience motion sickness at some point—from car rides to amusement park coasters. It occurs when conflicting signals reach the brain from our sensory systems. Our vestibular system, which senses movement and balance, doesn’t align with what our eyes see or how our body expects to move based on prior experiences. This mismatch triggers nausea and disorientation.
This explains why staring at a book while riding in a car can make you feel queasy, but looking out the window helps. Your brain gets consistent input—seeing the world blur as it should when you’re moving.
Spaceflight: A Whole New Level of Sensory Discord
Space adds another layer of complexity to this equation. In orbit, astronauts experience microgravity – effectively, zero gravity. Their vestibular system lacks the usual gravitational cues from Earth, creating a fundamental clash with their brain’s ingrained expectations.
This leads to space motion sickness, which can affect up to half of all astronauts during their initial time in space. Symptoms range from nausea and dizziness to vomiting and fatigue—all while performing complex tasks aboard a fragile spacecraft.
Coming Back Down: A New Type of Motion Sickness
But the problems don’t end when an astronaut returns to Earth. Since capsules often splash down into choppy waters, astronauts face another round of sensory confusion as they readjust to gravity. This is known as terrestrial readaptation motion sickness. Imagine trying to focus on emergency procedures while battling nausea from uneven waves and a returning sense of weight.
Beyond Medication: A Virtual Solution?
Currently, most space agencies rely on anti-nausea medication to combat motion sickness during spaceflight. However, these drugs have drawbacks like drowsiness and potential for reduced effectiveness over time.
Researchers are looking for alternatives, and one promising avenue involves virtual reality (VR). Studies by a team of aerospace engineers suggest that manipulating visual input with VR headsets could significantly reduce motion sickness in astronauts during splashdowns.
A Front-Window View from a Virtual Window
In these experiments, participants were subjected to motions mimicking the transition between gravity environments and rough ocean waves. One group wore standard VR headsets displaying no visual cues of motion—equivalent to being stuck in a car without looking out the windows. Another group saw a virtual “side window” view that mimicked the world moving past them naturally as they bobbed in simulated waves. A third group received a more sophisticated “front window” view: this included both present and projected future motion, like looking ahead on a road trip.
The results were compelling. The group with no visual cues suffered the most nausea and experienced significantly higher dropout rates due to sickness. Those with the side window view showed moderate improvement, but those with the front window view were faring the best—with roughly 90% completing the simulated wave motion without needing to stop prematurely.
A Safer Splashdown: Benefits Beyond Spaceflight
These findings suggest that by tracking capsule motion and projecting it onto VR headsets worn by astronauts during splashdowns, space agencies could reduce debilitating motion sickness by as much as half. In an emergency, these headsets can be quickly removed.
This research not only benefits astronauts but also has potential applications for anyone prone to motion sickness—think passengers on long flights, trains, or boats where looking out the window isn’t always feasible.
The quest for a pharmaceutical-free solution to this common yet disruptive ailment seems to have found promising allies in technology and virtual environments.
