When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins blasted off on their Apollo 11 moon-landing mission on July 16, 1969, they were set for quite a trip.
They were carrying drugs _ a lot of drugs _ as they planned to go around the dark side of the moon and land on the Sea of Tranquility. It was the groovy 1960s, after all.
But there was nothing nefarious about their stash on board the Saturn V rocket.
According to NASA archives of the mission, the astronauts flew with two medical kits that included all kinds of uppers, downers and even pills for (ewww) diarrhea in space.
The larger of the two mini pharmacies was located on the Columbia command ship.
"The 5-by-5-by-8-inch medical accessory kit is stowed in a compartment on the spacecraft right side wall beside the lunar module pilot couch," NASA explained in a 1969 news release about the mission. "The medical kit contains three motion sickness injectors, three pain suppression injectors, one 2-ounce bottle of first aid ointment, two 1-ounce bottles of eye drops, three nasal sprays, two compress bandages, 12 adhesive bandages, one oral thermometer and four spare crew biomedical harnesses."
Also included for the astronauts in the kit was more than 265 pills to pop, if needed.
Here's an inventory of the types of pills:
60 antibiotic, 12 nausea, 12 stimulant, 18 pain killers, 60 decongestant, 24 diarrhea, 72 aspirin and 21 sleeping.
That's a lot of drugs for three guys on an eight-day trip, albeit one going to the moon.
And that's not all.
There was another medical kit with even more drugs in the Eagle lunar module that Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon.
"Additionally, a small medical kit containing four stimulant, eight diarrhea, two sleeping and four pain killer pills, 12 aspirin, one bottle of eyedrops and two compress bandages is stowed in the lunar module flight data file compartment," NASA explained.
The space agency went to great pains to make sure the astronauts would be healthy and not get sick on the historic moon-landing mission.
On July 6, 1969 _ 10 days before launch _ the Apollo 11 astronauts held their last public news conference before liftoff, walking on a stage wearing "bright blue metal face masks" to protect them from journalists' germs and proceeded to an "enclosed three-sided plastic tent 50 feet from the nearest newsman," the Orlando Sentinel reported the following day.
"The tent included a series of blowers which pushed air from back of the astronauts onto the assembled newsmen," the story said. "Space officials said the elaborate $5,700 apparatus was to avoid inadvertent exposure of the crew to diseases which would disable them in space."
The extra caution was understandable given astronauts' recent health history aboard Apollo missions.
Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman came down with what was called the "Hong Kong" flu during his mission in December 1968. He reportedly suffered vomiting and diarrhea on the mission.
The entire three-man crew of Apollo 7 in October 1968 had bad colds while in space.
"Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham, slicing back into the dense atmosphere without the intense ear and sinus pain they had anticipated, emerged from their craft a bit red-eyed and tired-looking but soon got a clean bill of health from physicians," the Sun Sentinel reported in a story on Oct. 23, 1968. "And, except for some residual infection shown by Eisele, there was no evidence of the head colds the men developed while in orbit.
"All three rode through the fiery re-entry without their space helmets despite fears of ground officials that they might bang their heads on landing. And by leaving their helmets off so they could pinch their noses shut and force air into their cold-clogged ears, the crew avoided burst eardrums."
