Psychology of Space Exploration
but behavioral issues gained salience and became known to NASA officials and the
public at the same time. The astronauts’ experiences on Mir opened a window that
generated interest in spaceflight behavioral health.
In 1984, Robert Helmreich pointed out that in contrast to Americans, the
Russians seemed to have always maintained a certain degree of interest in psycho-
social adaptation.^52 He reprinted several quotes from cosmonauts showing interest
in psychosocial adjustment, group dynamics, and related topics, and he pointed to
the publication of a collection of papers on space psychology by Petrov, Lomov, and
Samsonov.^53 Nick Kanas and his associates have written extensively on the role of
psychology in the Soviet and then Russian space programs and have highlighted
the potential value of this research for NASA.^54 By the mid-1980s, Oleg Gazenko,
head of Soviet space medicine, concluded that the limitations of living in space
are not medical, but psychological.^55 Quotes from cosmonaut diaries and Soviet/
Russian reports remain popular for illustrating the importance of stress, mental
health, crew dynamics, and the like, in part because for a long time, neither NASA
support personnel nor astronauts themselves freely commented on such issues.
In the early 1970s, there were only three crewed missions, and then America’s
“House in Space,” Skylab, was abandoned. The United States invested in the
Shuttle, which supports fairly large crews, but for only short times in space. America
expected a space station, but it was not approved until 1984, and the station itself
underwent several iterations (Space Station, Space Station Alpha, and Space
Station Freedom) before becoming the ISS. The Soviets, on the other hand, moved
directly into the era of Salyut and Mir space station missions. For them, extended-
duration missions—and focusing events in the area of behavioral health—became
- R. L. Helmreich, “Applying Psychology to Outer Space: Unfulfilled Promises Revisited,”
American Psychologist 38 (1983): 445–450; Santy, Choosing the Right Stuff. - B. N. Petrov, B. F. Lomov, and N. D. Samsonov, eds., Psychological Problems of Spaceflight
(Moscow: Nauka Press, 1979). - N. Kanas, “Psychosocial Factors Affecting Simulated and Actual Space Missions,”
Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 56, no. 8 (August 1985): 806–811; N. Kanas,
“Psychosocial Support for Cosmonauts,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 62, no.
4 (August 1991): 353–355; N. Kanas, V. P. Salnitskiy, J. B. Ritsher, V. I. Gushin, D. S. Weiss,
S. A. Saylor, O. P. Kozerenko, and C. R. Marmar, “Human Interactions in Space: ISS vs.
Shuttle/Mir,” Acta Astronautica 59 (2006): 413–419. - J. E. Oberg and A. R. Oberg, Pioneering the Space Frontier (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986).