Do Astronauts experience jet lag? If so, how do they deal with it? (travelling to the moon or going into earth’s orbit)

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Do Astronauts experience jet lag? If so, how do they deal with it? (travelling to the moon or going into earth’s orbit)

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

As I recall, at least one moon mission dealt with “jet” lag when they had the astronauts try to sleep for a period when it was midday back in Florida. They did not sleep well at all.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes, the space station uses GMT, UTC, or Zulu time. It’s offset 5 hours from Florida, 8 from California. 3 hours from Moscow. The astronauts follow GMT for their sleep wake work schedule and this allows any nationality on the space station to find some time during the day to have contact with their home country.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Jet lag has nothing to do with flying on a jet or going fast. Its all about landing in a different time zone than the one you are used to. The abrupt time change throws off your bodies clock.

An astronaut taking off from Florida wouldn’t feel any jet lag if they landed back in Florida.

Anonymous 0 Comments

yes and no. The idea of jet lag is based on the fact that you’ve changed time zones. So, for example if you fly from California, where it’s 6pm but you’ve recently landed in Florida, where it’s 9pm, you wouldn’t be sleepy. That’s because as far as you, and your body are concerned its’ really only 6pm. so, you get sleep about 9pm PST, which is midnight EST, then you’re forced to wake up for a meeting at 6am EST wich is 3am PST, which of course is a form of torture. This feeling goes on until you’ve reset your internal clock to go to bed at a reasonable time, for where you are.

I spent 4.5 years on a submarine. No matter what time it was, wherever we were, when we closed the hatch, we immediately switched to Greenwich Mean Time or (Zulu time). Suddenly it was midnight, or it was 3am or whatever. Who cares. You work until you’re tired, then you sleep, if you’re not working. Then you get up when you have to work and you work. Then, when you’re not working, if you’re sleepy, you sleep. Time, as in day/nigh, was basically meaningless, either you had a shift to work or you didn’t.

The space station has a similar routine as there is no night time or day time.