Sleep deprivation in astronauts study

摘要

Astronauts suffer considerable sleep deficiency in the weeks leading up to and during spacef light, according to a new study. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Colorado studied the sleep patterns of 64 astronauts on 80 Shuttle missions and 21 astronauts aboard International Space Station (ISS) missions, before, during, and after spaceflight. In total, they recorded more than 4,000 nights of sleep on Earth and more than 4,200 in space. They found that despite NASA scheduling 8.5 hours of sleep per night for crew members in space-flight, the average duration of sleep during spaceflight was just under six hours on shuttle missions and just over six hours on ISS missions. 12% of sleep episodes on shuttle missions and 24% on ISS missions lasted 7 hours or more, as compared with 42% and 50%, respectively, in a post-flight data collection interval when most astronauts slept at home.