Aug 13 1982
From The Space Library
An ESA team of 17 engineers arrived at MSFC to prepare for the first Spacelab launch on the Shuttle, now scheduled for September. Preparations would include extensive training and simulations with the Spacelab payload specialists, including two Europeans already based at MSFC and the NASA payload-operations engineers supporting NASA experiments on the mission. Several months before launch, the NASA/ESA team would begin to support operations from the payload-operations control center (POCC) at JSC.
The ESA team had been working for five years on computer software and displays, crew procedures, experiment simulators to train the crew and the POCC team, and establishing a data base. The team, representing 6 different countries, would support experiments from 11 European countries. The 38 experiments on Spacelab 1 in five scientific disciplines would include 25 ESA experiments. (NASA Release 82-76; MSFC Release 82-77)
ARC reported the effects of disruption of the body's circadian (24 hour) rhythms on test groups subjected to weightlessness, rapid shifts in darkness and light, and social isolation, conditions similar to those encountered on manned space missions. These effects were important, said Dr. Charles Winget, ARC physiologist, because similar conditions on Earth were associated with boredom, irritability, negative moods, and withdrawal; the desynchronosis could also cause fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, gastrointestinal and other physical symptoms, and resulting decreased performance.
Experimental subjects showed abnormal temperatures and brain waves during circadian disruption; neither measurement returned to normal in less than two weeks. Upset rhythms caused problems with physical health, emotions, behavior, sleep, altered responses to medication, and increased susceptibility to colds, viruses, and infections. Daily rhythms linked to Earth's light/dark cycle appeared to be a natural function of cell-formation cycles in the human body, except for cancer cells, which did not exhibit rhythms. Pulse rate, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, kidney function, metabolism, and hormone secretions, all followed a pattern; drugs and alcohol affected the body differently at various times. Winget and others had developed a new -field of biology called chronopharmacology to study the effects of drugs administered at different times of day. (ARC Release 82-32; NASA Release 82-124)
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