Drugs in space: New medicines are off the planet
Sunday, 7 June 2026
Mike White is a senior writer and columnist.
OPINION: Up in the night sky right now, there’s something the size of a microwave going round and round and round, having the ride of its life.
Box-E was shot into space by one of Elon Musk’s rockets last month, and transferred to the International Space Station. Inside is some soup or goop which will grow into special and spectacular crystals as it relentlessly circles the planet for six weeks.
Gravity is the enemy of crystals, it seems. In the weightlessness of space, however, they grow and can be turned into crucial cancer medications back on Earth. It’s an orbiting apothecary.
Which is all very exciting, as it could lead to expensive and time-consuming infusions being able to be injected at home.
Yay for space. Yay for drugs.
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Drugs often get a bad rap, with pharmaceutical companies portrayed as evil pushers and soulless merchants of addiction.
I mean, whoa, the OxyContin scandal - it’s hard to conceive of a more cynical and appalling corporate strategy. Watch TV series Dopesick if you don’t know what I’m going on about.
But on the whole, I love drugs.
The ones I’ve tried have ranged from modest to miraculous when it comes to curing ills and ailments.
At the very top of the list is a humble antibiotic that utterly saved me from a world of misery in a faraway world one time.
It began at breakfast in a remote Mali village.
I was on one of those trucks that used to drive down through Africa, filled with backpackers and cartons of whisky used to ease bureaucracy at border crossings.
We’d just crossed the Sahara Desert, extracting a few hopelessly stuck hopeless cases with dodgy cars engulfed to the axles in sand, en route
Breakfast this particular morning was Weet-Bix, sluiced with instant milk. But whoever made the milk didn’t use boiled water.
I was hungry so came back for seconds. Consequently, I got sickest of everyone.
I shall spare you the details.
I will admit, however, that it was exhausting, embarrassing and extraordinarily debilitating. The drugs we had made no difference.
It went on for five gruesome days as we tracked our way down the Niger River, crossed from Mali into Niger, and finally arrived in the capital, Niamey, the first place we’d come to with doctors.
But it was late at night, and so we pitched our tents at a rudimentary camp ground in the city.
On one of my trips to the toilet that night, I thought I saw a man aiming a bow and arrow at me. Dehydrated, I thought I was delirious. But no, there was a man pointing a bow and arrow at me.
He was the camp security guard, and he’d seen this sickly shadow slink from a tent to the outhouse at 3am and thought something was afoot.
At the time, slumped miserably on the ablution block steps, I thought, “Go on, just shoot me”.
The next day, we got to a hospital, to be met by a fierce French doctor.
She instantly had no interest in my plight, no time for tourist malingerers, no belief that I was worthy of care. She was Medecins Sans Sympathy with a stethoscope.
Eventually, after much Gallic scoffery, she condescended to let me have a bed. And, after a few tests, some wondrous drugs.
The effect was near-instant, the relief indescribable.
The doctor, who retained not a solitary gene of Florence Nightingale nor a scintilla of concern for my recovery, wanted me out tout de suite, and wanted to be sure I paid up.
So much so, she organised for the hospital ambulance to take me to the bank to cash some travellers’ cheques - she didn’t want me taking a taxi and high-tailing it.
On my return, she emerged from an operating theatre to oversee me paying the bill.
I kid you not, she stood there in her scrubs and rubber gloves, and double-checked as the money was counted out. Of course, I also had to pay for “hiring” the ambulance.
She loathed me. It was completely mutual.
Ever since, though, I’ve been a believer in drugs, been rescued by them numerous times, and rely on them now.
The Old Dog is a believer too. His monthly drug bill would feed a family for a fortnight. But if it keeps him mobile and pain-free, then bugger the price.
The latest addition to his pharmaceutical diet was a shot of ketamine. Goodness, I said to the vet, he’s a huntaway, not a horse, but she assured me it was worth trying.
So next time you’re out at night, look skywards and see if you can spot the circling Space Station. Up there, wonder and magic are happening - wonderful magic that may just make its way down to Earth, and down to you one day.