Psychology of Space Exploration
She began her career in the Earth Science and Image Analysis Laboratory at
JSC (working for Lockheed Martin), serving as the Earth Science Applications
Lead. In this work, she collaborated with numerous ecologists and conservation
biologists in incorporating remote sensing data into their projects. She led the
development of the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth on the World Wide
Web at http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov, which distributes hundreds of thousands of images of
Earth taken from orbit to scientists and the public each month. In 2004, she com-
pleted a major NASA-sponsored scientific project to develop global maps of coral
reefs from Landsat 7 data and facilitate a distribution network to make them acces-
sible to natural resource managers. She was an editor of the book Dynamic Earth
Environments: Remote Sensing Observations from Shuttle-Mir Missions and continues
work on a remote sensing textbook.
In 2004, she joined NASA as a civil servant in the Office of the ISS Program
Scientist, where she led the development of a system for tracking ISS research and
results and provided the information to the public via the NASA Web portal. She
was named Deputy ISS Program Scientist in 2006 and Program Scientist in 2007.
Gro Mjeldheim Sandal is a professor of psychology at the University of Bergen
in Norway. Since the early 1990s, she has been the Principal Investigator of large-
scale international research projects funded by the ESA and focused on psycholog-
ical reactions during human spaceflights. These projects have included a number of
simulation studies of multinational crews isolated in hyperbaric chambers and per-
sonnel operating in other extreme environments (Antarctic research stations, polar
crossings, and military settings). She is currently leading one of the first psychologi-
cal studies of resident crews on the ISS in collaboration with colleagues working for
the Russian Space Agency. Her recent research has focused on the implications of
individual and cultural differences in values for efficient coworking among crews in
space as well as among ground-based personnel. A major aim is to gain knowledge
that can be used for selection, training, and in-flight support.
Kelley J. Slack is an industrial/organizational psychologist working for
Wyle in the BHP group for NASA at JSC. As part of BHP since 2000, she is
involved in the psychological and psychiatric selection process for astronauts and