NASA schedules eight and a half hours for astronauts to sleep each night, but on 1,294 of 2,951 nights studied aboard the space station they got less than six — and three quarters of the astronauts surveyed reported turning to sleep medication in orbit

NASA schedules eight and a half hours for astronauts to sleep each night, but on 1,294 of 2,951 nights studied aboard the space station they got less than six — and three quarters of the astronauts surveyed reported turning to sleep medication in orbit

Even in the weightlessness of orbit, exhaustion has a way of catching up—and NASA's astronauts are paying the price with medication and chronic sleep deprivation.