Introduction: Psychology and the U.S. Space Programapplied to human work. Classically, human factors addresses people’s interaction
with physical environments in work settings, but the interests of human factors spe-
cialists have broadened over the years.^7
In this 1989 presidential address to the association, Alphonse Chapanis could
point with pride to rapidly accumulating accomplishments everywhere in the field.^8
Floods of data were appearing in area after area of human activity (work, trans-
portation, leisure-time pursuits), and it was no longer possible to keep abreast of
the latest journals and books. The hottest topic of 1989 was computers: how they
had revolutionized society, how they spread beyond science and business and were
embraced by everyday people, and how they could be humanized through the
design of displays and controls. Certainly, much was left to be done—over the life-
time of the association, 71 major railroad disasters had claimed 5,059 persons; 192
major aircraft accidents had killed over 20,000 people; and, in the previous 10 years
alone, there had been thousands of nuclear “mishaps,” including prominent events
at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Still, Chapanis’s theme was that ergonomics
had “come a long way, baby,” and that the biggest stimulus for this was America’s
forays into space:
Space flights have become so commonplace and so much is known
about human performance in space that it is hard to remember the
thousands of analyses, studies, and experiments that were done
to pave the way for man’s leap into these hostile and unknown
regions. There were problems of vehicle design involving exotic
displays and controls. There were problems of vibration, of
g-forces, and of weightlessness that had to be explored and solved.
For extravehicular activity an entire self-contained environment
had to be designed for astronauts and cosmonauts. Torqueless
tools had to be designed for use by men who were floating freely
and encumbered by space suits with limited mobility. There were
problems of nutrition, waste disposal, and work-rest cycles. Nor- D. Meister, Conceptual Aspects of Human Factors (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1989). - A. Chapanis, “The International Ergonomics Association: Its First 30 Years,” Ergonomics
33, no. 3 (1990): 275–282.