Chapter 5
Managing Negative Interactions in Space Crews:
The Role of Simulator Research
Harvey Wichman
Aerospace Psychology Laboratory
Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate University
ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that a watershed period has been reached in the history of
spaceflight that requires a “paradigm shift” in the way spacecraft are designed and
people are selected and trained for spaceflight. In the beginning, space programs
had minimal spacecraft, and flights were of short duration. Heroic human speci-
mens were then recruited and extensively trained to perform in these machines
no matter how difficult or uncomfortable it was. Spacecraft technology is now suf-
ficiently sophisticated to design spacecraft to be much more accommodating to
human occupants. The historical timing of this shift in thinking is heralded by the
coming together of sophisticated space technology, the rise of space tourism, and
the desire for spaceflights of greater duration than brief sorties into Earth orbit.
Simulator technology has developed in step with spacecraft technology. However,
simulators are used primarily in training. The chapter concludes with an illustration
of how simulators can be used as behavioral research laboratories. A study conducted
for the McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Corporation is presented; in it, a spaceflight
simulator was used to explore both applied and theoretical questions with a diverse
group of civilian passengers in a simulated 45-hour orbital spaceflight.
INTRODUCTION
In the 47 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space and the
first person to orbit Earth, several hundred cosmonauts and astronauts have suc-
cessfully flown in space. Clearly, there is no longer any doubt that people can live