Astronaut Mental Health

1
Astronaut Mental Health

• Jameel Shihadeh
• November 26, 2007
• ABE 498

http//www.thebestlinks.com/Image__3A__Astronaut.j
pg.html
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Importance of astronaut mental health

• Psychological issues important to mission success
• Different issues from short-term to long-term
  missions
• How to successfully select for psychological
  stability
• How does this fit as a biological system/model

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Objective of references

• H. Ursin, B. Comet, and C. SoulezLarivière
  (1992)
• An attempt to determine the ideal psychological
  profiles for crews of long term space missions
• Kelly and N. Kanas (1994)
• Leisure time activities in space a survey of
  astronauts and cosmonauts

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Important factors to consider for crew psychology

• Crew Size
• 4 to 6 astronauts
• Leader
• Competency of crew
• Nationality
• Different languages
• Religions
• Food habits
• Gender
• Married couples / unmarried couples (Antarctic
  tests)
• How to select for tolerance of sexual abstinence

http//spaceflightnow.com/station/sts111/020528pre
view/
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Important factors to consider for crew psychology
(contd)

• Crew autonomy
• Conflicts between crew members
• Conflicts between ground and crew
• Crew activities
• On-duty
• Personal recreation
• Group recreation

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Anticipated stressors and reinforcers

• Stressors
• Dangers
• Social isolation
• Confinement
• Small group
• Emotional control
• Task repetition
• No immediate status award
• Sexual deprivation
• Social deprivation
• Sensory deprivation

• Reinforcers
• Unique adventure
• Challenge
• Expanding knowledge
• Goals in life
• Financial advantage
• Prestige

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How to select for astronauts

• Performance tests
• Personality tests
• Behavior observation
• Social skills
• Interviews

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Personality differences
Short Term
Long Term

• Assessing implicit character dimensions
• Do tests measure what they say they measure
• Consistency between psychologists and tests
• What is meant by aggression? Other traits?

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Social Aspects

• Preparation before mission
• Confinement simulation
• Teach conflict-resolution
• During mission
• Crew and control center need to meet with
  psychologists
• Audio/visual links with family
• After mission
• Effect of high radiation dose
• Dealing with media, family, return to
  civilization

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Key considerations

• Shuttle
• Volume per person
• Privacy
• Safety
• Group
• Harmony
• Motivation, stimulation
• Social/Ethnic compatibility
• Individual
• Previously discussed qualities
• More qualities for proper leader

http//www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0
258.shtml
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What are you?
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Authors final say

• A general call for candidates could follow
  Shackeltons advertisement in 1913 for selecting
  people for an Antarctic expedition
• men wanted for hazardous journey, limited
  comfort, years of confinement in hostile
  environment. Safe return doubtfulbut entering
  mankind History in case of success...

http//www.hetlaatstecontinent.be/geschiedenis/exp
edities/shackleton_endurance.html
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Leisure Time

• Importance of leisure during space flight
• Long term requires more stimulation
• Cosmonauts had access to more leisure stimulators
  than astronauts
• Radio/television, audio cassettes, books,
  magazines, movies, news (international,
  national), etc

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Out of sight out of mind

• Cosmonauts
• Mostly long term missions
• Would miss certain leisure activities that they
  had access to
• Astronauts
• Mostly short term missions
• Did not miss activities for lack of access to
  them
• How culture affects preferences

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Leisure in the digital age

• Can fit thousands of media sources (books, music,
  etc) on a computer
• Comfort of reading from a computer
• Has internet changed our accepted methods of
  leisure?

http//www.atelier.fr/inventions/special,ces,e-boo
k,wifi,voiture,ecran,tactile,jeu-31199-7.html
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Computer programs for psychological assessment

• In 1998 the National Space Biomedical Research
  Institute's (NSBRI) produced a computer program
  to help with conflict resolution and mild
  depression
• Uses prevention, assessment, treatment,
  management techniques
• People open up to a computer more easily than a
  person
• Uses hypothetical situations to teach and learn
• Computer modeling of human psychology

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Conclusions and questions

• How long can we confine people to appropriately
  represent a long duration mission, especially a
  3 year program like Mars (sample frequency and
  time)
• Emphasized concern for gender. How to test for
  tolerance of sexual abstinence (to test how
  realistic model is)
• Ursin et al criticized the criterion and
  definitions of personality test measurements.
  How easily can we simulate realistic situations
  and invoke real responses? (controlled
  experimentation)
• Would you consider this modeling human psychology
  and emotion?