Attractive advertising that accompanied the appearance of “mattresses for astronauts” and promised a feeling of “weightlessness in a dream”, in practice, did not justify high expectations.
Curious results were observed in laboratory tests of such a mattress. On it, even in the absence of a person, the outlines of the body were visible, which then disappeared, and there was a feeling that the invisible man was lying on the mattress and then left it. In fact, there is no mysticism here, just the material Tempur, from which the mattress is made, has thermosensitive viscoelastic properties due to which the material of the mattress changes its shape and fixes it under the influence of pressure and temperature of the human body. After the cessation of pressure, it takes some time for the mattress to take on its original form. An example of this type of mattress are mattresses 80x160 cm.
In addition to the tempura mattress, other mattresses made of viscoelastic foam rubber were also tested. Research results showed that the mattress “remembers” and retains a fairly rigid impression, reflecting the configuration of the body of the test person, showing the properties of the “shape memory”. This impression can significantly interfere with a person’s peaceful sleep during his attempts to change the situation. A movement in a dream and change of position, as you know, is necessary for a good rest and relieving the load on the spine and vertebrae. Even the most advanced and innovative technologies that are necessary and useful under certain circumstances may not always be effective and relevant in other situations. This is evidenced by the results of testing mattresses from new viscoelastic materials and their comparison with the properties of conventional mattresses - highly elastic polyurethane foam, latex or with an independent pocket-type spring block, which show the advantage of the latter in terms of comfort and function of the spine. One of the options of this type are mattresses 800h1950.
Manufacturers of a new type of mattress diligently emphasize the connection of their products with scientific developments of NASA. It is justified by the fact that the basis of the material of their product is the Tempur polymer, the use of which in spacecraft was aimed at reducing the overloads of cosmonauts. Therefore, the creators of advertising used the image of a woman hovering in weightlessness over the “cosmic mattress”. Admittedly, the properties of foamed polyurethane really contribute to a uniform distribution of body pressure. Therefore, the mattresses from it can be useful for bed patients, who often as a result of prolonged lying separate parts of the body are subjected to prolonged compression, which causes the occurrence of bedsores. And this fact manufacturers of the described mattress also try to emphasize. However, the majority of consumers of mattress products are healthy people, for whom the question of uniform pressure distribution is not essential, but the prospect of lying on a mattress, forcing them to stay real while sleeping, is far less pleasant. So the real reality turned out to be so far from the promises of cosmic sensations, which promised the manufacturers of viscoelastic mattresses made of polyurethane foam.
