Symptoms of Outer Space

Outer space does some crazy things to your inner ears. The confusing information reaching the inner ears causes nearly every astronaut to experience space sickness. Symptoms include but are not limited to: nausea, headaches, and trouble locating your own limbs. Pregnant rats that were sent into space gave birth to tipsy topsy baby rats whose inner ears were still developing while in outer space.

Another symptom of weightlessness: fluids move upward causing nasal congestion and a puffy face; bones lose calcium, forming kidney stones; and muscles atrophy, slowing the bowels and shrinking the heart.
Zero gravity does make you taller though. The decreased pressure on the spine causes most space travelers to grow about two inches.

If you are ever exposed to the vacuum of space without a suit on, don’t hold your breath: Sudden decompression would cause your lungs to rupture. In addition, water on the tongue, in the nose, and in the eyes would boil away. This actually happened in 1965, when a space suit failed during a NASA experiment and the tester was exposed to a near vacuum for 15 seconds.
Contrary to Hollywood, though, you wouldn’t explode. Lack of oxygen in the blood is what would kill you, but it would take about two minutes.
More explosion paranoia: Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space-tourism company, reportedly considered barring women with breast implants due to fears that they might blow up.


If astronauts tried to sprinkle salt and pepper on their food it would float away, and likely cause some serious issues. Instead astronauts add salt and pepper to their meals in liquid form.

Returning astronauts report extreme difficulty moving their arms and legs right after touchdown, one reason why they call landing “the second birth.” Long-duration cosmonauts report that the hardest thing to readjust to about life on Earth is that when you let go of objects, they fall.

So after all of this? A total of eighteen people have died on space missions, but never in space—always on the way up or the way down.

Source: Discover Magazine