"Our deepest fear is going space crazy through loneliness. The only thing that helps me keep my slender grip on reality is the friendship I have withmy collection of singing potatoes." —Holly,Red Dwarf

Something about the deep recesses of outer space seems to inspire insanity in a lot of fictional characters. Maybe it's theloneliness, the feeling of insignificance it inspires, orthings that mankind was never meant to encounter. Or, perhaps,Hyperspace Is a Scary Place. Or the mind that can't handlethe emptiness itself long enough starts to make things up to fill it. Regardless, a good chunk of fiction seems to link outer space with insanity. Can occur withLudicrous Speed.

The trope takes its name from an episode ofThe Ren and Stimpy Show,about, well, Ren's space madness (andonly Ren's, because hismoronic sidekick Stimpy seems to be immune).

CompareOcean Madness, sinceSpace Is an Ocean and all that.Cabin Fever is a related trope, due to its similarities to the close confines of a spacecraft.

Anime andManga

• Infinite Ryvius. After being isolated in space with no supervision, the children on theRyviusturn on each other quickly and cruelly. In addition to theHumans Are the Real Monsters elements of the series, the madness might also be partly a result of theApplied Phlebotinum used in the Vaia ships, given that the captains ofBlue Impulse andGrey Geshpenst also go insane.
• Planetes spends a large portion of its run dealing with space madness, when a member of the team of space garbage collectors becomes separated from their craft in the depths of space and ends up combating the fear of being alone by convincing them self that all people are meant to be alone.

Comic Books

• An earlyLegion of Super-Heroes story had Sun Boy snapping from too many consecutive deep space missions, after which the Legion Constitution was amended to require mandatory downtime every so often.
• The2000 AD seriesAce Trucking Co. featured a condition called "Isolation Syndrome" or "Abbo Dabbo" as a recurring trope.
• In52,Animal Man is told not to look out the spaceship's windows for too long because it tends to cause existential crises.
  • For extra humor, the man who gives him this advice isblind.
• Storm of theX-Men, suffered a more mild version of this due to the fact that she was away from the Earth and felt a disconnect returning. She was angry and decided to get a new look involving leather and a Mohawk. She eventually got better.

Film

• In the filmArmageddon, this is the justification for the loopyMir "Russian space station" attendant. He'd been alone up there for quite a while. Rock Hound, on the other hand, suddenly comes down with "Space Dementia" and starts shooting everything with the remote-controlled gatling gun they brought along for some reason. Not that most ofthe hastily recruited crew of drilling experts-turned-astronauts were all that sane to start with...
• Dr. Reinhardt fromThe Black Hole.
• Sunshine (2007) features several cases of space madness of varying severity, from the mild (becoming addicted to close-range suntanning) to the severe:"Mankind was not meant to tamper in the domain of God! Die!"
• Averted inOutland. Federal MarshalO'Niel is trying to find out why miners on Io are going insane and killing themselves. At first, it seems like they're cracking up under the pressure of living in grimy, crowded, dangerous conditions far from Earth. 28 have died in the last six months, with 24 in the six months prior. But when O'Niel is told onlytwo died in the six months beforethat, he realizes something's fishy.
• Played completely for laughs inDark Star, where the entire crew has gone visibly unhinged from five years stuck inside cramped space, performing a thankless job that nobody wants and having nothing to do.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey featured a paranoid AI; probably one of the best examples of evil AI. Of course, you'd be paranoid too if you used your lip-reading abilities to listen in on your fellow crewmates plotting to kill you.
  • The actual problem is two conflicting sets of instructions that HAL had to obey without question. The only way to solve the puzzle was to kill the crew in a way that would leave HAL with plausible deniability to itself since it was also programmed to protect the crew.
• Figures largely into the filmPandorum. "Pandorum" is actually their term for space madness.
• Conquest of Space (George Pal's 1955 sci-fi flop after his previous blockbustersDestination Moon andWhen Worlds Collide). The general in charge of the mission to Mars begins to crack, and in a religious fervor tries to sabotage the spacecraft in the belief that Man is not meant to leave planet Earth. In this case, the psychological instability is (more realistically) linked to the stress under which the astronauts work, rather than any inherent properties of Outer Space. Earlier in the movie when a candidate for the mission washes out, the doctor diagnoses it as: "Space sickness, brought on by excessively long training without any breaks."

Literature

• TheRobert A. Heinlein novelStranger in a Strange Land. Secretary General Douglas asks if Dr. Mahmoud is "space happy" from his trip back from Mars.
  • The main character of the Heinlein storyOrdeal In Space develops severe acrophobia after an EVA accident sends him adrift in space until rescue arrives, forcing him to give up space flight.He snaps out of it when he nerves himself up to rescue a kitten stuck on a ledge.
• In a short story byLarry Niven, Belters (asteroid miners) are said to temporarily lose their minds while staring at space, similar to "highway hypnosis". They continue to function somewhat, much like sleepwalkers.
  • Also in Niven (same universe, Known Space), human (and probably Kzin, kdatlyno,Pak, etc.) brains have a defense mechanism against a certain form of this: you'd go mad looking athyperspace, since your brain isn't evolved for that kind of geometry, and so your brain simplyedits out windows, viewscreens, etc.
• The Total Perspective Vortex fromThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works by showing the victim, just for one brief instant, theentire universe, and their place in it. It's described as the worst fate a sentient being can endure, as the realization of just how insignificant he is completely destroys his soul.
  • Zaphod Beeblebrox proved to be completely immune to it. It was at first thought that he'sso egocentric that the Vortex has exactly zero effect on him.The real reason was that he was exposed to it while in a pocket universe specifically designed for him... therefore he actuallywas the most important thing in that universe, meaning the Vortex didn't have its intended effect.
• In the classic short story "Scanners Live in Vain" byCordwainer Smith, humans are unable to cope with the "Great Pain of Space" (whose exact cause is unknown but related to the FTL technology) and rely oncold sleep ships crewed byHabermas whose brain has been severed from all sensory input except the eyes, and whose body therefore has to beregulated by implanted instruments.
  • The Pain of Space wasn't spacemadness, it was actual physical pain. At the time Cordwainer Smith wrote the story, little was known about the environment of outer space, or what the strange and little-understood radiations there would do to a human body. Smith used this as an excuse to write an allegorical tale about the tragic dangers of separating the head from the heart (and not the way they mean inHighlander, either).
• InIsaac Asimov'sThe Martian Way, it is a widely known "fact" that nobody can remain in space for more than six months without going crazy, and it is hard to even remain that long, which is why ships are built as big as possible and are filled with libraries and movie theaters to keep their passengers occupied. However, the hero points out that many humans who have colonized Mars have stayed out in space for longer, and on much more cramped and un-amusing ships, too, as they have adapted to the experience. They also think that floating in the void in a spacesuit is great fun, and spend much of their off-duty hours while traveling between planets doing so.
• Asimov has also written a story called "I am in Marsport without Hilda" which is based around the fact that most people cannot travel in space without a dose of special medication... and it is very difficult to conceal the fact that said medication can be cooked into a super drug in anyone's kitchen.
• In the short story "The Second Kind of Loneliness" byGeorge R. R. Martin, the sole inhabitant of a space station spends most of the story wondering why his relief hasn't arrived. Only at the end does he remember that he murdered his relief several months prior for interrupting the solitude he had finally become accustomed to.
• The Shores Of Death by Michael Moorcock: no one can leave the Earth for as much as a month without their spirit driving them mad with the pain of separation from mother Gaia. One man manages to spend years away by reforming himself into a mutant monstrosity, but his acolytes die horribly. Then again, Orlando Sharvis may in fact be another incarnation of Arioch, or perhaps Satan.
• In the short storyCompetition by James Causey, just looking into a viewport is enough to send a female biochemist into temporary insanity—it's mentioned that only experienced space travelers can do so.
• In the short storyEgocentric Orbit by John Cory, the first men launched into space withdraw into themselves and refuse to talk to anyone, such is the ego-boosting effect of seeing the entire world revolve around them.
• In theWilliam Gibson short storyHinterlands, those who travel the interstellar "Highway" invariably return catatonic, insane, or dead by their own hand. In rare cases, a returnee can be temporarily grounded in reality by taking some really good drugs with someone they can totally relate to.
• The Nothing Equation, a short story by Tom Goodwin (ofThe Cold Equations fame). An astronaut is assigned to a one-man astronomy station at the edge of the galaxy. He knows that his replacement went insane, and the one before committed suicide, but is confidenthe won't crack up. Slowly though he becomes obsessed with the idea of just how vulnerable he is out here, with a hull one-sixteenth of an inch thick holding 2 million pounds of pressure. He starts charting every possible vulnerable point and ends up months later cowering under a makeshift tent, convinced the "nothingness" outside is just waiting for a chance to come rushing in. The story ends with a fourth astronaut taking over the post also confident that he won't crack up; after all, there's 'nothing' out there to be afraid of...
• In the short storyScrimshaw, by Murray Leinster, a group of millionaires on their first tourist trip to the Moon go into catatonia or commit suicide as Earth retreats behind them and they realize their sheer insignificance.
  • As practice showed later, Leinster's ideas of human humility were greatly exaggerated.
• Mack Reynolds wrote aStar Trek book,Mission to Horatius, in which the possibility of "space cafard" became a concern. Spock described it as:

"Compounded of claustrophobia, ennui--boredom, if you will--and the instinctive dread of a species, born on a planet surface, of living outside its native environment... A mania that evidently is highly contagious. It is said that in the early days of space travel, cafard could sweep through a ship in a matter of hours until all on board were raging maniacs, and--"

• Tomorrow War by Alexander Zorich all ships have at least some bays equipped with real windows (not video screens). If this feature is omitted, the crew will grow less stable until someone starts to drool or breaks the screen and then walks out of an airlock. One of the reasons may besensory deprivation during jumps—crews obviously are used toFTL travel and aren't jarred too much, but it seems to make the long-term problem worse.

Live-Action TV

• Star Trek has a bunch:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Lights of Zetar". Scotty says that going on your first deep space trip can affect a person's mind.
  • Star Trek The Original Series episode "The Tholian Web". Being in a particular area of space causes violent insanity by distorting the molecular structure of brain tissues and the central nervous system.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Dramatis Personae".
  • Star Trek: Voyager has The Void. (confusingly, it's in the episode titled "Night", not the episode titled "The Void") It's lightyear upon lightyear of nothing. You can't even see the stars; it's so big that hardly any ships cross it, thus nobody from either side knows much about the other. It's so big that the ship has to be on minimum power, and a broom leaning against the Conn panel could fly the ship. Nothing to do, nothing to see, everybody goes stir-crazy or suicidally depressed.
    • Or composes a hauntingly beautiful clarinet piece (Of course, Perpetual Ensign Harry Kim always was one of the most stable of the bunch).
• Parodied on an episode of the satirical British seriesBrass Eye, in which a segment documents howNASA was forced to place a mentally retarded man on the Apollo 11 flights as an outlet for the crew's massively heightened sexual impulses caused by space travel. Women were deemed "too silly" for space.
• Red Dwarf has references to people going space-crazy.
• iCarly: Carly manages to suffer from this after a few hours in "iSpaceOut" even though she, Sam, and Freddie never go to outer space and are just in a simulation room.
• This is a theorized origin of the Reavers inFirefly - that they went to the edge of known space and something they saw, whether it was the vast emptiness or something else, drove them insane. Not everyone believes this - as Jayne points out inThe Movie: "I went to the edge of space once. Know what I saw? More space."The truth issimpler andfar worse at the same time.
• In theFarscape episode "Coup By Clam", "transmissible celestial dementia" is a greatly feared infectious disease.
• The firstTwilight Zone episode "Where Is Everybody?" is about a man who finds himself in an empty town. He's revealed to have hallucinated the whole thing during an exercise designed to replicate the feeling of isolation in outer space.
• OnJohn Doe, a metal dome in the forest turns out to be a simulated space vessel, in which astronauts have been confined for months to test the mechanisms and psychological hazards of a manned trip to Mars. Initial investigation suggests the crew have killed each other due to Space Madness from prolonged isolationbut it turns out their air-circulation system was sabotaged, causing a gas imbalance that impaired their reason.
• OnCommunity Pierce succumbs to this after a few minutes of being locked inside a space simulator.

Music

• Muse's songSpace Dementia.
• This is quite possibly what happens in David Bowie's songSpace Oddity. In the song, an astronaut named Major Tom makes a trip into outer space, and when ground control detects a problem, he makes a last transmission of"Tell my wife I love her very much" before contact is lost. The last verse of the song implies that the isolation will drive him mad.
  • A later Bowie song,Ashes to Ashes states that"Major Tom's a junkie" - although whether the drugs are the cause or the result of his space madness remains unspecified.
• TheVan der Graaf Generator songPioneers Over C is about an astronaut who, very similarly to Major Tom fromSpace Oddity, loses contact with ground control. The song goes on as anInner Monologue of his insanity.
• In theSandra Boynton three-part song "Cow Planet", sung by Billy J. Kramer, episode 2 heavily implies this is starting to happen to the crew by then. The voices sound deadpan and irritable, and some of the lyrics even suggest that some are getting sick of each other. "We've got a blazing afterburner, it's an irritating drum..."

Video Games

• The Fury fromMetal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, aRussian cosmonaut that wentAx Crazy from something he witnessed while outside the earth's atmosphere.His suit was on fire, and he saw the Earth through the flames... making the Earth appear to be on fire.
  • Why this should produce insanity is a question best left toHideo Kojima and his imagination.
  • Having the only piece of equipment keeping you alive (your suit) being on fire would qualify as pretty traumatic for most people.
• InPolicenauts, this leads to a higher rate of drug abuse amongst astronauts, who developed the designer drug Narc as a way to relieve the pressure of living in space. Narc is a psychedelic hallucinogen that also gives the same narcotic effect as heroin, so users are incredibly resistant to pain. It's also outrageously addictive.
• Captain Vladamir fromNo More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle. Possibly as a shout-out to the fury above, was a cosmonaut who went insane from isolation and didn't realize he was back on earth until he died at the end of the fight when his helmet was shattered.Fridge Logic abound about why he was an assassin when he didn't even know where he was.
• Flavor text for the Oort Cloud inX3: Terran Conflict mentions that those who work there sometimes fall victim to "Oort's Curse", a madness with no known cause or cure.

Web Comics

• Safely Endangered illustratessome embarrassing consequences.

Web Original

• A short story on365 Tomorrows involved walking out in space driving an astronaut to suicide. It implied that it was a fairly common circumstance.

Western Animation

• The Ren and Stimpy Show actually had an episode titled "Space Madness". In it, the tedium of space travel starts to get to Commander Hoek (Ren) and he starts to lose his mind (however little there is of it to lose in the first place). Cadet Stimpy was forced to restrain him, but Hoek believes that Stimpy is the one who has Space Madness and plots to get rid of him.

Real Life

• This trope likely originated in 1950s experiments designed to test the effects of working in a cramped, low-oxygen environment—which could result in hallucinations and other signs of mental stress. Of course, this had more to do with theisolation andsense of claustrophobia created by such experiments, but as no one had actually gone up into space at the time the results were not encouraging. Actual astronauts worked in bigger capsules and were either not up long enough to make any difference, or worked as part of a team. The psychological effects of long-range multi-year missions to Mars however have yet to be seen.
  • As the recent^[when?] experiments Mars-100 and Mars-500, mentioned below, show, while there could be some friction, they're nothing that cannot be dealt with.
• One of the justifications for the short-lived push for women astronauts in the late 1950s was that studies had shown they could cope with isolation better than men.
• The European Space Agency locked six people in a house/mock spaceship for over 500 days, as an experiment to see how people would cope with a trip toMars and back. Naturally, they still had gravity, but the communication delays and isolation from "Earth" were simulated pretty well.They emerged unscathed, though they were certainlyhappy to be out.
• The fears of Space Madness led to the situation whenYuri Gagarin's capsule controls were locked up, with the code to be transmitted to him from the Earth after his mental state was evaluated. Unofficially he had the codes on a slip of paper in his pocket.
  • Another version is that he had this code in a sealed envelope inside his capsule and he wasn't supposed to know it beforehand. Two different people told him the code on the launch day. Bonus points for the second one telling the code just minutes before sealing the ship.
  • The whole team was completely convinced (and was later proven right) that the theory was bupkis, as it was proposed by a doctor who never had any experience with spaceflight or even aviation medicine. But he had too much clout to be simply ignored, so they were forced to play along.
• Gemini 7 was an endurance test for Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. Long after they'd run out of things to do, as Lovell later reported, "For the last few days we justexisted."
  • This may have more to do with the fact that the cabin of the Gemini spacecraft was the size of the front seat of most automobiles than the outer space environment, especially given that crews on the International Space Station regularly stay up for six months at a time, and some Russian cosmonauts were on Mir for more than a year on end with only their two crewmates for company.

• Trope
• Pages with Examples That Are Not Timeless
• Space Madness
• Madness Tropes
• Tropes in Space
• Speculative Fiction Tropes