Behavioral Healthpercent of the female candidates and 7.5 percent of the male candidates. However,
since no specific documentation existed, there was no way to know the reasoning
behind his decisions.^68 This is not to say that the psychiatric consultants did a poor
job of selecting-out; because no validation studies were completed, there is no evi-
dence by which to evaluate their work.
Under the leadership of psychiatrist Patricia Santy and psychologist Al Holland
in the 1980s, and then, in the 1990s, psychiatrist Christopher Flynn, there was
a gradual return to evidence- and normative-based astronaut selection. In 1988,
a biobehavioral research laboratory was formed within the Space Biomedical
Research Institute (SBRI), which at that time was a branch of NASA’s Medical
Sciences Division, along with Medical Operations. Michael Bungo headed SBRI;
Patricia Santy was the director of the laboratory; and psychologist Al Holland
became her deputy. The Biobehavioral Laboratory was to develop a new work-
ing group of psychologists and psychiatrists to make recommendations on both the
operational and research needs in the areas of the behavioral sciences. At that time,
operations were expanding beyond helping to choose astronauts to providing psy-
chological support for the astronaut corps.
The development of standardized, semistructured interviews and diagnos-
tic criteria, aided by the work done by the Working Group on Psychiatric and
Psychological Selection of Astronauts, resulted in a rewrite of NASA psychiatric
standards based on the then-current American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual III and recommendations for a select-in process.^69 The rea-
soning behind the select-in process harkened back to the original logic of 1959,
hypothesizing that certain psychological traits were associated with effective astro-
naut performance. Commencing in 1989, validation work on the select-in criteria
was begun. In describing the selection process, Laura Galarza and Al Holland note
that selection starts at the time of entry into the astronaut corps, then should con-
tinue through the training process and include selection for designated missions.^70
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- L. Galarza and A. W. Holland, “Selecting Astronauts for Long-Duration Missions”
(SAE International Document 1999-01-2097, presented at the International Conference on
Environmental Systems, Denver, CO, July 1999); L. Galarza and A. W. Holland, “Critical
Astronaut Proficiencies Required for Long-Duration Space Flight” (SAE International