Tim Peake's dizziness experiment

ESA astronaut Tim Peake set out to discover if he could make himself dizzy on board the International Space Station. His NASA crewmate Tim Kopra lent a hand to put Tim in a spin.

When astronauts first arrive in space, they usually feel pretty rough for about the first 24 hours. They report feeling dizzy, disorientated and sometimes nauseous. This has to do with the vestibular system. In microgravity the fluid in the inner ear is floating and so the brain is getting mixed signals compared to what the eyes are seeing. After about 24 to 48 hours, the brain starts relying more on information that is coming from the eyes. Once this happens, in theory, their brain is better able to cope with all kinds of different orientations and of course spinning...

[EnricoPiazza]

Next episode: How to cure a concussion in micro gravity after smashing your head on lab equipment

[Micro]

now he works as a loading animation for esa

[Thrannn]

thats so cool. he is spinning so fast but still able to talk normal. so unreal

[caloss]

Watching this, I felt really quite concerned Tim was going to bash his head against the joystick assembly, what a trooper.

[hilarylunn]

This is the best space video I've ever watched, bar none. It's so good to see the crew working together as there are many videos with just one astronaut; this gets across how well they work together and how good friends they are. Also, the experiment is very, very interesting and I'd never thought, one, that it's extremely difficult to get dizzy in space and, two, how fast someone can spin in space.

[ddstar]

"crazy".. says the guy sitting upside down

[eskileriksson]

One of the best videos I've seen, from ISS. And I totally missed it, six years ago.

[elendiastarman]

This was really cool for me to see, since I can't get dizzy either! My semi-circular canals are malformed (and my cochleas didn't develop fully, so I'm deaf), so I don't have a functioning vestibular system. I am perpetually unable to get dizzy. (I use my vision and proprioception to balance when walking, standing on one foot, etc.)

[breetaylor]

Tim Peake must have been a hedgehog in a former life because I swear all I saw was him doing a spin attack in low Earth orbit

[dobbsy]

That was so fun to watch but also really interesting.

[adeel]

tbh I was worried he was going to bang his head on the joystick on the console.
good video though!

[mreyeball]

I can just imagine them having upside down conversations in space

[ossie]

Interesting! Well done guys. Safe trip back to earth.

[FutureAIDev]

Don't smack your head on that laptop, Tim!

[Bercik]

2016 and we still have those silly glitches in games...

[emdentaylor]

imagine walking (floating?) into this to see ur two astronaut buddies just spinning each other round

[valentinelds]

I felt dizzy for him just by watching him going that fast, that's quite unbelievable

[Denes_]

A lot of time spinning, congratulations Tim Peake, well done. amazing❤️👏👍

[cottoncandy]

He looks like a loading motion graphic 😂

[jamiegodman]

that was great Tim. excellent experiment!