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2011 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. Psychological Issues of Spaceflight

Author : Gilles Clément

Published in: Fundamentals of Space Medicine

Publisher: Springer New York

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Abstract

This chapter emphasizes the importance of mental and social well being in the success of both short and long space missions. What are the psychological and sociological issues, which must be addressed, especially for international missions? This section reviews the factors that may have a critical impact on the success or failure of a space mission, in terms of interactions of the crewmember with his habitat, with the space environment, and with the other crewmembers (Figure 6.1)

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previous chapter The Musculo-Skeletal System in Space

next chapter Operational Space Medicine

Space simulator experiments allow, however, to control some of these aspects.

The mutiny of the Skylab-4 astronauts against Mission Control is the perfect example. All the astronauts of the Skylab-4 mission were first-time flyers (rookies). Before they got adjusted, Mission Control transferred the same busy schedule to them as their predecessors had kept in the space station. After their complaint about a heavy workload did not receive enough attention by the ground controllers, the Skylab-4 astronauts declared an unscheduled day off to Mission Control and proceeded to turn off the radio while they got some rest. This mutiny led to much-needed workload adjustments [Shayler, 2008]. Perhaps as a result of this event, a rule states that at least one member of an Expedition crew on board the ISS should be a spaceflight veteran.

Some astronauts have reported that the swollen face in weightlessness, due to the headward fluid shift, creates a problem in communicating by eye contact.

Mike Collins [1990] wrote: “As I used to tell John Young before Gemini-10, I was happy I was making my first spaceflight with him, but I wanted to fly so badly I would have gone up with a kangaroo!”.

Every cosmonaut makes day and night jumps from different altitudes, while performing tasks that become successively more difficult. For example, they may be required to carry on a radio conversation, identifying locations on the ground, before opening their parachute. This interest for parachuting can be traced back to Yuri Gagarin’s day where the cosmonauts bailed out of the Vostok before landing [cited by Collins, 1990].

After 6 months spent on board the ISS, the Expedition-6 crewmembers made an interesting description of their first sensations after their Soyuz landing. “When the hatch first cracked open, the smells of spring on the steppes and the sounds of birds overwhelmed us. Real earthy smells because we’d stirred up a fair amount of dirt when we landed and then we rolled and were dragged a bit. So you had this fresh dirt smell, which was just a beautiful smell… and it had a little bit of crushed grass in it, too. Then the next thing that hit us were all the birds chirping… It was just music to our ears.”

Amazingly, even though crewmembers of the ISS live and work so close together, a lot of their real communication takes the form of written words. In the information age and with computers at each work station, astronauts and cosmonauts are communicating between themselves and others more via e-mail and instant messaging that verbally [Robert Thirsk, personal communication, 2009]. This is good training because during the mission to Mars, communication with the ground using e-mail will be the least affected by the 40-min delay.

Susan Helms, a crewmember of the ISS Expedition-2, said: “Before I went up on the ISS for 6.5 months, I moved out of my place, put all my possessions in storage, and moved into the astronauts crew quarters earlier than most people do. I didn’t want telephone or credit card bills, or anything except a bank account where my paycheck could go. I figured if I didn’t have a home back here to worry about, the ISS could become my home. (…) I wanted it to be like a military deployment, like Navy guys who go out on a ship for 6 months and put all their stuff in storage.”

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Title: Psychological Issues of Spaceflight
Author: Gilles Clément
Publisher: Springer New York
Book: Fundamentals of Space Medicine
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9904-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4419-9905-4

Copyright Year: 2011
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9905-4_6

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