Have a Safe Trip!

You know you’ve always wondered:  What would it be like to take medicine...in space? NASA has discovered, to its dismay, that crucial medications needed for travel to Mars, or for life on the international space station, degrade much more quickly in space than they do on earth. Of 35 medications NASA tested against matched control drugs kept at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, only nine met current potency standards after spending from 13 days to 28 months in boxes on the International Space Center, 220 miles away from earth. Common drugs like Tylenol, amoxycillin, and dextroamphetamine could become unusable well before the expiration dates, said the authors of a study in the AAPS Journal, a pharmaceutical research publication. (Yes, it’s a poorly kept secret—astronauts have used various drugs, including combinations of amphetamine and scopolamine, to combat space sickness.) Plans for longer missions in space mean the need for more drugs, stored safely for longer periods. The culprits, scientists say, are radiation and the need to repackage pills for space travel. Radiation damages the medicines by ionizing them, and repackaging exposes them to possible oxidation. One bright note: Astronauts in space live in carbon dioxide-rich environments, which “may help minimize the degradation of those medicines prone to oxidations, such as adrenaline, vitamin C and vitamin A.”