Vestibular experiment in Spacelab (1)

(November 1, 1983) In this photograph, scientist-astronaut and electrical engineer Owen K Garriott (1930-2019) on the body restraint system and astronaut, fighter pilot, and engineer Byron Lichtenberg (b 1948) prepare for a vestibular experiment during the Spacelab-1 mission. The Vestibular Experiments in Space studied the interaction among the otoliths, semicircular canals, vision, and spinal reflexes in humans. The main objective was to determine how the body, which receives redundant information for several sensory sources, interprets this information in microgravity. Another objective was to record and characterize the symptoms of space sickness experienced by crewmembers. The body restraint system was a rotating chair with a harness to hold the test subject in place. The crewmember wore an accelerometer and electrodes to record head motion and horizontal and vertical eye movement as the body rotated. The first Spacelab mission, Spacelab-1, was sponsored jointly and shared equally by NASA and the European Space Agency. Spacelab-1 was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Orbiter Columbia for the STS-9 mission on November 28, 1983. The Marshall Space Flight Center had management responsibilities for the mission. (Source: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center [Redstone Arsenal, Alabama]. NASA ID: 8440005. Public domain.)