title: Space madness: the dreaded disease that never was.
abstract: Psychiatrists working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the late-1950s feared the worst of the men they examined to be America's first astronauts: that they would be impulsive, suicidal, sexually aberrant thrill-seekers. The examiners, though, were surprised - and a little disappointed - when tests revealed the would-be astronauts to be sane, poised professionals able to absorb extraordinary stresses. A Space Age malady with no incidence among human populations, 'space madness' is the stuff of Hollywood: a cultural manifestation of popular fears of a lonely, dehumanizing, and claustrophobic future among the stars.
authors: University of Pennsylvania, Department of History and Sociology of Science, Suite 303, Claudia Cohen Hall, 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304, USA. matthew.hersch@gmail.com
authors: Matthew H
authors: MH
authors: Hersch
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000337:Aerospace Medicine / Q000266:history; D018480:Astronauts / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000266:history*; D008603:Mental Health / Q000266:history*; D012934:Social Isolation; D013026:Space Flight / Q000266:history*; D018561:Space Simulation; D014481:United States