Space Madness

I was listening to NPR yesterday and heard about the two astronauts doing repairs on the International Space Station, and the term "Space Madness" popped into my head.

Space Madness. What a chilling set of words, right? Space is a place where you can't breathe and madness is just plain debilitating. It's also the title of one of the scariest episodes of "Ren and Stimpy" I'd ever seen, but surely that can't be the point of origination of that little tingle of fear that shoots down my spine when I hear those words in sequence. Space Madness must be something really bad-- something that makes astronauts want to chew their own helmet-encased faces off. Something that makes the buddies of the afflicted astronaut shake their heads and realize that they're going to have to cut the tether line and let him go because there's simply nothing else that can be done. Because I've never been in space, or known anyone who has, I'm woefully uneducated on the topic-- so I looked it up:

"Defiance, detachment, disagreement – harmful emotions in any small group situation, but in Outer Space these feelings are particularly damaging and possibly life endangering."

Life endangering. So we're getting to the rip-your-own-face-off part, right?

“In everyday life we are very socially dynamic and belong to a number of groups, such as family, work and friends. There are a number of psychological advantages to having such a dynamic social environment, which will be absent when people spend long periods of time in isolation.”

Okay, so the astronauts won't be able to sit and pass a blunt around while watching "So you think you can dance?" when they're in space. I kind of figured they'd be prepared for that, being astronauts and all...

The article that I referenced, entitled "How to Avoid Space Madness," details efforts by an Australian research team to simulate the lonely and stressful environment of Outer Space. The test astronauts get injected with a daily dose of cortisol [which our bodies release naturally in response to elevated stress levels] and then go get stressed out in some capsule. Some of the things the researchers were most interested in were how the subjects worked in a cohesive group and the potential problems that go along with cohesive groups.

“One thing we are interested in is the question of whether or not groups are good or bad for your health,” Dr. Eggins says. “We know that in cohesive groups people perform better, work harder and are more cooperative than in loose-knit groups.

“But do cohesive groups make us work too hard and what does that do to our stress levels?”

There are also other issues relating to the wrong sort of cohesion in a group, and small sub-groups forming within larger groups.

“There is a danger groups may become too cohesive,” Mr. Krins says.

There's also a danger that one of the astronauts might feel left out, or might want to borrow the saftey scissors and the others won't share-- THEN WHAT?! And let's not forget the greater danger that research money is being squandered on total boring dumb crap. Come on. "Space Madness" is sounding more and more like "Space Restless Leg Syndrome" and I'm thoroughly disappointed. No longer will Space Madness hold such a romantic/dangerous/terrifying place in my heart. No longer will I be able to imagine a sweaty astronaut with his eyes rolled back in his skull drifting towards the sun-- cut loose, crazy, and doomed to melt in his suit. Alas, this is now the only image that the term is capable of conjuring up: