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When sleeping on the
job is a good thing:
Exploring the final frontier requires
rest
“It’s not practicing
medicine, it’s almost like merging
science fiction with medicine, There is
no training, there is no prior
experience to get you ready for a job
like this.”
— Ronald Moomaw, D.O. (’80)
by Aaron Krumheuer
Photo submitted by Ronald Moomaw, D.O.
For Ronald Moomaw, D.O. (’80), the key to a
successful space flight is a good night’s sleep.
Dr. Moomaw has worked for the National
Aerounatics and Space Administration (NASA) as
a psychiatrist and flight surgeon for the past three
years at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
One of NASA’s 26 flight surgeons in the Human
Space Flight Operations Branch, Dr. Moomaw
provides behavioral health support for flight
controllers and astronauts, including those on the
International Space Station.
He is one of the authors for the international document
on fatigue management and an author for NASA’s
fatigue management clinical practice guidelines.
Along with treating his flight team, Dr. Moomaw is
involved with the preparations for an 18-month stay
on the moon, something he said may be undertaken
in ten years, with a Mars landing possible in 25 to
30 years. This involves planning and implementing
cutting edge space flight risk and countermeasures
research, something he never expected when
entering psychiatry, he said.
“It’s not practicing medicine; it’s almost like merging
science fiction with medicine. There is no training, there is
no prior experience to get you ready for a job like this.”
In 1976, Dr. Moomaw entered OU-HCOM in its first
class of students, excited to be a part of a new
college led by Dean Gerald A. Faverman, Ph.D.,
he said. After graduating in 1980, he entered the
Air Force and decided to become a psychiatrist,
completing his residency in psychiatry at Wright
State University and Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base. Three years ago, Dr. Moomaw joined NASA.
During a flight, the biggest risk to an astronaut is
an unexpected “adjustment reaction” to being in
space. Depression, anxiety, anger and many other
emotions may be triggered from the challenging
environment in space, and each could cause
serious disruptions in sleep.
On a long duration space flight, which is currently
six months and will soon be stretched to a year, a
lack of sleep can undermine an entire mission.
“Ninety percent of what we do is prevent things
from happening,” said Dr. Moomaw.
So his task is to apply countermeasures. Taking a
non-pharmaceutical approach to treatment, he’s
developed several methods to help astronauts
sleep, like monitoring melatonin, teaching
astronauts methods to fall asleep and designing
appropriate lighting conditions onboard the craft.
For instance, onboard the International Space
Station, his team is replacing fluorescent lighting
with LEDs set for blue light in the morning to wake
a sleeping crew, red-orange in the evening to assist
them in falling asleep, and full-spectrum lighting
when it’s critical for tasks such as reading tests that
use color to indicate levels of compounds.
“It’s a huge undertaking, but by doing that, we can
help control the circadian desychrony that happens
because of inappropriate lighting,” he said, referring
to the 24-hour biological cycle of an astronaut that is
disrupted while in space.
Sleep cycles can also be measured on the ground,
and with the help of some advanced programs, Dr. Moomaw and his team can predict, based on quality
and duration of sleep, the parts of the day each
astronaut will be highly functioning, over-worked or
dangerously fatigued. It’s especially useful to know
when undertaking a task like docking the ship, he said.
“As we see with the successful
landing of Curiosity on Mars, we have
the technology to get equipment
successfully into space, but the
critical factor will be the human and
psychological health in extreme
environments,” he said. | 
