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Depressed Astronauts Might Get Computerized Solace
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Oct 27, 2008 09:01 AM
from the just-email-them-porn dept.
from the just-email-them-porn dept.
alphadogg writes "Clinical tests on a four-year, $1.74 million project for NASA, called the Virtual Space Station, are expected to begin in the Boston area by next month. The effort is designed to address the onset of depression in astronauts while they are in outer space. In the project, sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a recorded video therapist guides astronauts through a widely used depression therapy called 'problem-solving treatment.'" Here's a related story from a few weeks ago. Those astronauts got it rough.
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Technology: Software To Provide Astronaut Counseling 116 comments
Currently, whenever an astronaut needs to talk to someone, a counselor is only a radio call away. Unfortunately, for voyages further out, this contact time starts to increase quite a bit, so researchers have started to look for alternative methods of counseling. I just hope the new counseling software has the Dr. Sbaitso voice. "Instead of asking astronauts to reflect on their feelings, Mark Hegel of Dartmouth Medical School has them create lists of concrete things that are bothering them and brainstorm about practical ways to solve them. At the end of the exercise, users fill out a form used to diagnose depression. Clinical tests of this approach, which has never been tried in a multimedia self-help format, will start in a few months, using subjects recruited from the biomedical and engineering community in Boston."
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Companionship (Score:3, Insightful)
How about just flying up the occasional prostitute for "group therapy"? They could do what they do with astronauts and rotate which country she is from, etc.
Re:Companionship (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think online gaming would be excellent for someone feeling lonely and depressed. I have played my share of online games, have community friends. For the duration that I'm playing, it feels as if I am not in my mom's basement and out there, with friends.
After all, my mom's policy on sex in the house is similar to that of NASA, albeit in space.
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I think online gaming would be excellent for someone feeling lonely and depressed.
The ping times in space are absolutely terrible, due to the finite speed of light and the large distances involved. (For example, the light-delay to Mars varies - due to the differing orbits - between 3.1 and 22.5 minutes! Or so Google claims.)
They'd be better off having a LAN party.
Interplanetary lag (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Companionship (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's just what we need.
One fuck up in contraception and all the sudden you've got the first interstellar birth with a kid that's doomed to spend the rest of their life on another planet, the mom and/or it doesn't die. You want to think about how hard it is to get baby vomit out of instrumentation?
Or are we going to try the Chinese route and sterlize everyone going up? I'm sure that'll help the ranks of volunteers swell.
Or hey! Here's an idea, shove the possibility of romance related tensions into missions where people are already going to be living almost right on top of each other. I'm sure between the stress of the mission, the complete lack of privacy, and love triangles there couldn't possibly be anything that could go wrong there.
After Lisa Hardwick flipped out over her relationship issues on the ground, you really think NASA has enough of a pulse on their people that they can pick the right group that won't snap up there?
Parent
Not the chinese, but the island method (Score:2)
The islands of lesbos and sapphos prerrably
an all woman crew nips the pregancny thing in the bud- and purportedly women are better suited for space travel than men anyway.
and if it happens, well, think of the ancillary rights!
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"Or are we going to try the Chinese route and sterlize everyone going up? I'm sure that'll help the ranks of volunteers swell."
Obviously I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that's a great idea and wouldn't affect my willingness to volunteer at all. Choice A) Go into space vs. Choice B) stay here and be a slave to a family for the rest of my life ... hmmmm ... tough one!
There's lots of people who give up family voluntarily for careers and I also think that for a lot of people the dream of space explor
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Great! Hopefully he will get rescued and raised by Martians and return to Earth to start a sex cult.
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Simpler solution, on board Real Dolls.
You don't want some angry pimpnaut flying up to kick your ass do you?
EMACS- what problem can't it solve? (Score:4, Funny)
M-x doctor [emacswiki.org] always did it for me.
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Eliza is a tease
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internet access in space? (Score:2)
Quick, cheap, and easy alternative (Score:4, Funny)
CHEER UP, EMO ASTRONAUTS!
You have the coolest freaking job in the whole damn stupid world.
Untold thousands of nerds would do anything to get where you are, but the closest they'll ever get are sewing together their own Star Trek uniforms.
Get over your damn selves, and get back to being awesome.
I swear I read this as "Depressurized Astronauts" (Score:3, Funny)
and I thought, "Geez, that's nice of em, but..."
Computerized Solace? (Score:4, Funny)
This really just sounds like a fancy name for porn.
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You can get computerized Solace, but I'm pretty sure it's only for Mac. [mofunzone.com]
Right.... (Score:3, Insightful)
" the project, sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a recorded video therapist guides astronauts through a widely used depression therapy called 'problem-solving treatment.'""
On Earth, we just call it porn.
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Yeah, but in space you'd have to design an entire device for collection so you don't have spooge floating around the space station. That'd likely foul up some equipment somewhere.
I'm pretty sure the logistics of a micro-gravity wank in an enclosed space with sensitive equipment is far more challenging than simply giving the astronauts porn. :-P
Cheers
Naw, drugs (Score:3, Interesting)
Worked in Outland. Just remember to put on your helmet.
Or wall-projected golf and a nightclub.
Despite the "world's coolest job" posts, I'm more on the Philip K. Dick side that thinks months in a can will truly suck and they'll have ad agencies lying through their teeth to get people up to the mining colonies.
Wait until it starts singing (Score:2)
When it starts singing "Daisy" then it is time to abandon ship.
Reminds me of a story about Apollo astronauts (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember hearing a story about several of the Apollo astronauts experiencing problems with depression. I guess after walking on the freaking moon, making gravy train money on the lecture circuit doesn't give you the same sense of accomplishment.
I guess in this case Willy Wonka was full of shit. Getting everything you want in life doesn't always lead to "happily ever after"
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That would depress me to some extent.
Robot psychiatrist ... (Score:2)
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response (Score:2, Funny)
Well, that's unique.. (Score:2)
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Best job in the world? I disagree. I'd rather win the lottery and do nothing for the rest of my years then be an astronaut. That is if I could choose
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Re:Depressed astronauts? (Score:5, Interesting)
An alternative interpretation would be, a job acts like a cage (retricting what you can think and do) and a caged animal feels depression, at lack of freedom. So its not that people are or are not evolved to be happy, its that people are not evolved to be caged in a job.
Sounds like its time you found a new cage!
Parent
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An alternative interpretation would be, a job acts like a cage (retricting what you can think and do) and a caged animal feels depression, at lack of freedom. So its not that people are or are not evolved to be happy, its that people are not evolved to be caged in a job.
My take is that would be a wrong interpretation. The job isn't a cage in this example, it is merely perceived as one.
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After a while you would become depressed because your money is the wrong color. man have simply not evolved to be happy. depression is clearly not a new fad. People hated their jobs in the 12th century and still do.
That's absolutely true - but I think an extra problem for these guys is being stuck somewhere without the usual things we can try to make depressed people feel better (like go on holiday, buy a dog, get some exercise, change your life, etc), and the danger of somebody mission critical being out of action for a prolonged period.
So while it's an old problem - I think it has new complications. I wonder if there's any historical documentation of depression on long sea voyages and what was done about it.
Re:Depressed astronauts? (Score:5, Funny)
"Hell, how are you supposed to do something as simple as crank out out when you have to worry about catching it all or it may jam an instrument panel?"
Stealth fapping tech is inevitable. A cross between a Fleshlight and a milking machine should do the job.
Parent
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Re:Depressed astronauts? (Score:5, Informative)
Depression is not always about something. That's the thing. Sometimes people just feel like total shit without there being a clear reason for it.
Parent
Re:Depressed astronauts? (Score:5, Funny)
People who have the best job in the world (and out of this world) really don't get much sympathy from me when they complain about the job.
Never underestimate several people in a small capsule farting over many days. Sometimes depression will make your eyes burn.
Parent
Submariners might be better (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing, perhaps NASA is selecting from the wrong pool of people to put into small capsules for long periods of time.
Instead of picking from the usual air force sort of people maybe they should be picking candidates from nuclear submarines.
Might be easier to find a submariner that can be trained to fly than to find an air force sort of person willing to put up with being stuck in a claustrophobic tube for months with no way out except "Mission over" or death.
Parent
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Forget the submariners, get a battleship crew [wikipedia.org] up there. They'll know what to do.
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Dear me, what a quaint and outdated view of what depression is and how it works. Are you one of those people who assume that addiction is merely a matter of will power? Or are you and Tom Cruise shacking up together to discuss the fallacies of modern psychology.
Thank you for reminding us how people treated the ill back in the 1800's.
Addiction is a matter of willpower (Score:3, Insightful)
Addiction is a matter of willpower. Find me an addict who has kicked and stayed clean for a length of time who doesn't directly reference their own willingness to quit as a determinant.
That doesn't mean it's only about willpower, but your claim simply has no merit.
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Did you have troble with the meaning of the word 'merely' in my post or were you in such a hurry tripping over yourself to get in a word that you missed it?
And find me someone who's kicked their heroin addiction purely on the basis of will power. Someone who won't feel the craving the rest of their life, not just someone who's learned to fight it.
Re:Depressed astronauts? (Score:5, Informative)
The standard treatment for depression is medicine AND therapy. There might be room on board for a bottle of Lexapro but not for Counselor Troi. So that's the aspect they're working on. I don't see anything outdated about what they're doing.
Parent
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Nor do I, which is why my post was a response to someone poo pahing the idea [slashdot.org] and not to the idea itself.
Re:Depressed astronauts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake up whenever you want. Get fed at regular intervals. The only job requirement is that you show a modicum of glee when your owner is around. What does a dog get depressed about?
Dogs are not people (or specifically, not you) and they don't share what you out of life. The breeds we have were bred for certain jobs like herding, hunting, or killing vermin. In general they weren't bred to be companion dogs. They desperately want to do this job and without that fulfillment, they have problems. I don't know if that specifically can cause depression, but I could see it.
I guess my point is, without actually having BEEN a dog or an Astronaut on a space station, it's difficult to know exactly what they go through. So I wouldn't be so quick to judge.
Parent
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One thing that I know causes depression, or attributes to depression anyway, is just plain old exercise.
If you are a very active person, out in the sun running or doing whatever else, and then you have inactivity forced upon you, injury, too much work, being stuck in a tiny shuttle hundreds of thousands of miles from earth, or even locked in a cage while your master goes to work, the lack of endorphins can trigger depression. I know depression in general is more complex than that, but once I noticed this pa
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