between crew members and people on the ground. (4) Group sensitivity training for astronauts
and cosmonauts could reduce the influence of personal, cultural, national, and other
peculiarities of behavior during the mission. (5) Conflict resolution and communication training
already widely used in modern industry could be tailored for use among space crews, with
special attention to cultural differences. This includes the necessity to study the language of
one’s foreign crewmates, with special focus on words and terms describing everyday life so that
crew members can discuss not only their work, but also talk about other social aspects of their
lives. (6) The opinion of crew members should be solicited and taken into account regarding
access to logistics, fair workload distribution, etc, so that potential sources of quarrels can be
identified and offset. (7) Crew members sharing space aboard the ISS should have many lines of
communication, both among themselves and with people on Earth. (8) Finally, research needs
to be done involving the effects of increased crew autonomy during manned space missions.
Crew members working on the lunar surface or participating in an expedition to Mars will be
more autonomous and less dependent on mission control direction and support than crew
members engaged in an in-orbit mission. Little is known about how this autonomy will affect
operations, and the ISS could provide a test bed for studies that explore this issue (Kanas 2008,
2009).
PUBLICATION(S)
Boyd JE, Kanas NA, Salnitskiy VP, et
al. Cultural differences in
crewmembers and mission control
personnel during 2 space station
programs. Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine.
2009;80(6):532-546. doi:
10.3357/ASEM.2430.2009.Kanas NA, Sandal GM, Boyd JE, et
al. Psychology and culture during
long-duration space missions. Acta
Astronautica. April-May,
2009;64(7-8):659-677. doi:
10.1016/j.actaastro.2008.12.005.Kanas NA, Gushin VI. Problems and
possibilities of astronauts – Ground
communication content analysis validity check. Acta Astronautica. 2008;63(7-10):822-827. doi:
10.1016/j.actaastro.2008.01.007.
Kanas NA, Ihle EC, Saylor SA, Ritsher JB. Psychological adaptation and salutogenesis in space:
Lessons from a series of studies. Acta Astronautica. 2007;60(4-7):336-340. doi:
10.1016/j.actaastro.2006.09.002.
ISS005E6055 – Expedition 5 Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson (left)
and Sergei Treschev (right) work with a laptop in the Destiny
Laboratory on June 27, 2002. Crew members that participated in
the Interactions investigation completed confidential questionnaires
on a laptop and then downloaded the files to the ground-based
investigators. The Mission Control Center crews completed similar
questionnaires.