Psychology of Space Exploration
During the early 1960s, the United States and Soviet Russia were locked in a
race to the Moon, and in many ways, the two programs paralleled each other. In the
United States, solo missions (Mercury) gave way to two-person missions (Gemini)
and then to three-person missions (Apollo) that, in July of 1969, brought astro-
nauts to the Moon. The Apollo Applications Program followed close on the heels
of the last astronaut’s departure from the Moon. Based on leftover Moon race equip-
ment, the Apollo Applications Program included the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project,
where Americans and Soviets joined spacecraft to live together briefly in space, and
Skylab, America’s “house in space” in the mid-1970s.^8 By the late 1970s, the U.S.
and Soviet programs were following different paths: Americans awaited the orbiter,
or Space Shuttle, and Soviets launched a series of space stations. In 1984, President
Ronald Reagan approved the development of a U.S. space station, but construction
was delayed almost 15 years. President Bill Clinton approved the station as a multi-
national venture, and it became the International Space Station, or ISS. Prior to its
construction, American astronauts joined Russian cosmonauts on Mir; later, they
worked together as partners on the ISS. The ISS recently reached its 10th anniver-
sary of having multinational crews living and working in space.
Although psychology played a prominent role in the early U.S. space pro-
gram, some branches had all but disappeared by 1963. To be sure, psychologists did
show professional interest in humans in space, and many panels and commissions
sought to increase psychology’s involvement (see chapter 1). Since there were prac-
tically no studies of astronauts, researchers relied heavily on studies conducted in
Antarctica, submarines and research submersibles, and simulators. Research con-
tinues in all three venues; Antarctica took an early lead and remained prominent
for many years.^9 A primary reason was that International Geophysical “Year” (IGY,
1957–59) stimulated research on human adaptation to isolation and confinement,
with the authoritative and influential accounts appearing in the early 1970s.^10
- H. S. F. Cooper, Jr., A House in Space (New York: Bantam Books, 1976).
- L. A. Palinkas, “The Psychology of Isolated and Confined Environments: Understanding
Human Behavior in Antarctica,” American Psychologist 58, no. 3 (2003): 353–363. - E. K. E. Gunderson, Human Adaptability to Antarctic Conditions (Washington, DC:
American Geophysical Union, 1973); J. E. Rasmussen, ed., Man in Isolation and Confinement
(Chicago: Aldine, 1973).