Thursday 8 August 2013

Men Into Space - With Lucky Strike


1959. Smoking in space, yes, in the Future of the Past everyone did it - astronauts and scientists fuelled by nicotine. A man's horizons may change overnight. His tastes don't. But they did.


7 comments:

  1. As common as smoking used to be in that era, I'm pretty sure NASA instituted a "NO FUMAR" policy when it came to space shots.

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    Replies
    1. Ah, you're probably right. After all, the impression needed was that they were perfect, superhuman, without such 'weaknesses'.

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    2. Not so much that, but the fact that you''d be spending long stretches in a closed environment. Can't have people fouling up up the limited oxygen supply. And I imagine the whole ashing thing would present some problems in zero-g.

      I know we got Tang and freeze-dried food as spinoff benefits from the space program. Maybe that's where the nicotine patch came from, as well.

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    3. But from what I've heard, Russian standards regarding such protocol were more relaxed. Maybe that had something to do with why they won the space race, and why the U.S. now has to piggy-back off the Russians to get some of its own satellites into orbit. Because while NASA was being gradually defunded and started to slacken, the Russians kept their program running full tilt. Mostly by shuttling cartons of Camels up to the guys on the Mir.

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  2. Well, it's the first damn thing I'd want to do when I got up there.

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  3. Heh-heh - even space pioneers are human, therefore prone to addiction of some kind.

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