spatial
disorientation as a result of weightlessness; toxicology of
metabolites and propellants; effects of cosmic, solar, and nuclear
ionizing radiation and protective shielding and treatment; effects
on man's circulatory system from accelerative and decelerative g.
forces; the establishment of a thermoneutral range for man to exist
through preflight, flight, and reentry; regeneration of water and
food.[61]

In addition, intensive efforts are being brought to bear on such
problems as the effect on humans who are deprived of their sensory
perceptions, or whose sensory systems are overloaded, or who are exposed
to excessive boredom or anxiety or sense of unreality, or who must do
their job under hypnosis or hypothermia (cooling of warm-blooded
animals).

A recent space medicine symposium heard this theory advanced by a
prominent medical scholar:

Attractive, indeed, for the space traveler would be the choice of
hibernating during long periods when there was nothing he had to
do. With the increase of speeds and the lowering of metabolism,
consideration of flights running several hundred or even thousands
of years cannot be offhandedly dismissed as mere fantasy. During
prolonged flights of many months or years there will be very little
to see and that of negligible interest. The most practical way of
dealing with the problem might well be to have the pilot sleep 23
of the 24 hours.[62]

Lowering the body temperature would be one way of inducing the necessary
deep sleep.

Another possibility of handling some of the biological problems of space
flight, suggested by another physician, would be for astronauts to
discard the 24-hour Earth day and establish a longer rhythm for their
lives.[63]

At any rate, and while we may not now see just how it will come about,
knowledge gained from experiments such as these may result in important
medical and psychological advances.

In the drug and technological area of medicine, concrete benefits have
already resulted from the national space program. These include, as
already mentioned, a drug developed from a missile propellant to treat
mental ills, a means of rapidly lowering blood temperature in
operations, and a small efficient valve which could replace the valve in
a human heart.

Particularly gratifying, from the standpoint of medical value is the
Army's work toward an anti-radiation drug whic