Introduction: Psychology and the U.S. Space Programpeared from NASA.^13 For years, she wrote, psychology played a minimal role in
astronaut selection, and because the assessment of individual astronaut performance
was prohibited, it was not possible to collect normative data for test validation and
other purposes. She characterized the application of psychology to space as run-
ning 20 to 30 years behind most areas of medicine and identified formidable orga-
nizational barriers to psychology within NASA. Joseph V. Brady, whose research on
primate behavior in spaceflight dates back to the 1950s, states that following John
Glenn’s flight, there was a dearth of in-flight behavioral experiments.^14 Brady char-
acterizes this as a 30-year hiatus in psychological health research for NASA, a gap
that he thought must come to an end given NASA’s vision for humans in space.
Peter Suedfeld cuts to the heart of the matter: “Through most of NASA’s existence,
the behavioral sciences have been barely visible on the agency’s horizon.”^15
How can we reconcile such pessimistic views with the optimistic assessments
of Grether and Chapanis? Robert Helmreich’s point was that, generally, those dis-
ciplines that are rooted in biology, engineering, and experimental psychology have
found greater acceptance within the space program than disciplines rooted in per-
sonality, social, and organizational psychology. Lawrence Palinkas, an anthropol-
ogist who has developed an enviable record of hands-on research experience in
unusual environments, organized these issues in long-term spaceflight into three
“domains”: the individual domain (stress and coping), the group dynamics domain
(social interaction and intergroup relations), and the organizational domain (man-
agement, organizational culture, and behavior).^16
From the beginning, physicians, psychologists, and their allies advocated strong
behavioral research programs in NASA. Margaret A. Weitekamp points out how
interest in high-altitude flight in the 1930s initiated research that evolved into aero-
- P. A. Santy, Choosing the Right Stuff: The Psychological Selection of Astronauts and
Cosmonauts (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994). - J. V. Brady, “Behavioral Health: The Propaedeutic Requirement,” Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine 76, no. 6, sect. II (June 2005): B13–B23. - P. Suedfeld, “Invulnerability, Coping, Salutogenesis, Integration: Four Phases of
Spaceflight Psychology,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76, no. 6, sect. II (June
2005): B61. - L. Palinkas, “Psychosocial Issues in Long-Term Space Flight: An Overview,” Gravitational
and Space Biology Bulletin 12, no. 2 (2001): 25–33.