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"[Science fiction is] nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible."
- Gregory Benford

Space Scurvy (Kenoalgia)  
  A wasting disease of space travel.  

“George shook his head. "Before you can get over your attack of kenoalgia," he said remorselessly, "you'll have to realize what's causing it. There's nothing wrong with you physically, but being in open space for the first time in your life is giving your ego the worst beating it's ever had. The first spacemen, who weren't trained psychologists, couldn't believe that so much nausea and prostration could have mental causes. They attributed it to a marasmic action of cosmic rays on nervous tissue, and the first two expeditions to land on Luna mutinied rather than go through 'space scurvy' getting home again." He cleared his throat.”

“Kenoalgia's a new disease," he went on, "because it's a response to a new situation for the human organism, being out of Earth's gravitational field. Psychologically, it's a combination of repressed fear of falling, anxiety about bodily integrity, and the rejection response.

Technovelgy from Sacred Martian Pig (Idris' Pig), by Margaret St. Clair.
Published by Startling Stories in 1949
Additional resources -

Compare to space sick from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback and space weakness from Space Tug (1953) by Murray Leinster.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Sacred Martian Pig (Idris' Pig)
  More Ideas and Technology by Margaret St. Clair
  Tech news articles related to Sacred Martian Pig (Idris' Pig)
  Tech news articles related to works by Margaret St. Clair

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