Why You Won’t Get Motion Sickness On The Gimbal Rig

If you’ve seen the recent movie First Man, you might’ve noticed the 3-axis gimbal rig (also known as The Gimbal Rig Mercury Astronaut Trainer) and how intimidating, and perhaps exciting, that might look. If you are someone who tends to get carsick, you probably thought: “Well that’s a theme park ride I’m ok missing out on.”

First, what motion sickness is. Most common theory is Sensorimotor Mismatch Signals which happens when your body is getting two very different messages. For example, you’re in a moving vehicle and you’re focused on a stationary object (i.e. your phone), so your eyes signal to your brain that you’re not moving, but your body’s balancing mechanisms (i.e. your ear’s vestibular system) are telling you otherwise. These conflicting messages are what cause the symptoms of motion sickness.

Second, let’s talk about how to prevent motion sickness. In a nutshell, there are a couple of main medication-free options: one is to close your eyes to eliminate the stationary signal your eyes send to your brain. Another option is to look far in the distance, like the horizon, and focus on that (you don’t want to look at moving cars or other objects in motion because it could trick your eyes into thinking you’re moving at a different speed or direction than you actually are).

So what about a repetitive rocking back and forth motion, you ask? You can get motion sickness from a rocking motion but it’s usually less likely than when you’re in a moving vehicle. When rocking back and forth, it’s possible for our eyes to focus at a close by object (“Oh hey, giant TV!”) and trick our eyes into thinking we’re not moving. Again, this is far less likely.

So why won’t you get motion sickness from the gimbal rig? Because of the way the 3 axes rotate, you’re never facing the same direction twice, consecutively. This makes it virtually impossible to trick your eyes into focusing on any stationary object. However, if you close then open your eyes repeatedly, you could get sick due to your brain not able to keep up with your spinning, causing you staccato vision.