Sleep deprivation is a problem for people of all walks of life. While experts insist that anyone severely deprived of sleep should avoid dangerous tasks such as operating heavy machinery, flying an airplane or even driving a car on the highway, accidents do happen. At the top of the list of dangerous tasks are the tasks presented to the NASA crewmembers onboard the International Space Station. For these astronauts, accidents can turn to disaster in the blink of an eye.
Astronauts experience a completely different sleeping environment than the average Joe. Unlike most people who sleep comfortably in their beds at night, astronauts sleep strapped down in a gravity free environment, orbiting Earth, 200 miles from the surface of our planet. These sleeping conditions last as long as astronauts remain in space, which can range from 14 days to 6 months on average.
Danger for astronauts lurks at any moment’s notice when a crewmember may need to perform a critical mission operation. Failure to succeed at these critical mission operations, due to sleep deprivation or any other debilitating problem, is simply not an option for astronauts.
According to Lauren Leveton, manager of the Behavioral Health and Performance Element Human Research Program Space Medicine Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
Sleep deprivation has a real effect on human health, according to Leveton, hindering a person’s ability to focus and perform a task while altering his or her mental state. “When you consider the risky business of spaceflight, we want to reduce the risk of performance decrements and optimize people’s performance capabilities.”
A new NASA sleep study will monitor the sleep and wake activity of at least 20 crewmembers prior to launching into space in hopes of gathering information that NASA can use for planning future exploration missions. These missions may last twice as long as the average mission and involve more constrained environments, so any means of improving the quality and duration of sleep in space will surely aid future explorations.
Astronauts will wear a wristwatch that monitors their sleep and wake activity through accelerometers, which are sensors that record movement. The device also measures ambient light conditions.
Each crewmember will also keep a daily sleep log and submit baseline data from their sleep patterns on Earth.
NASA says that data and feedback from a few astronauts already using the device has lead to changes in schedule and countermeasures such as naps or caffeine intake.
The data collected from the study will also prove valuable on Earth, as researchers will apply it to improve the sleep patterns of military personnel, shift workers, police officers and other types of workers.
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