Psychology of Space Exploration

Behavioral Health

1978, the first female and black candidates were selected; only a few years later,
in 1983, the public wildly acclaimed mission specialist Sally Ride’s orbital flight
aboard Challenger. Some of the women who had participated in the informal wom-
en’s astronaut selection program of the early 1960s felt vindicated in 1995, when
they watched pilot Eileen Collins lift off, carrying their dreams with her.^78 Today,
female astronauts routinely participate in Shuttle and Space Station missions in
many different roles. Despite the long road that American women and minorities
traveled to prove their worth, the U.S. experience has shown that talented women
and minorities, given no special treatment because of gender or ethnicity, are as
adept as their white, male colleagues in the world of space.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT

Initially, psychological support for astronauts came from helpful flight surgeons,
flak-catchers who tried to minimize interference on the part of the media and the
public, as well as cheering family and friends. By means of shortwave radio, astronauts
on the ground encouraged astronauts in orbit. It is clear from Wolfe’s The Right Stuff
that the astronauts’ wives provided strong support for one another, as well as for their
husbands.^79 The larger community of astronauts and their families still provides psy-
chological support for astronauts before, during, and after their flights.
Professional psychological support for the astronauts and their families evolved
over time and gained momentum in the early space station era.^80 Today, psycho-
logical support is provided in three stages: preflight, in-flight, and postflight.^81

78. Weitekamp, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex, p. 188.


79. Wolfe, The Right Stuff.


80. E. Fiedler and F. E. Carpenter, “Evolution of the Behavioral Health Sciences Branch of
    the Space Medicine and Health Care Systems at the Johnson Space Center,” Aviation, Space,
    and Environmental Medicine 76, no. 6, sect. II (June 2005): B31–B35; Flynn, “An Operational
    Approach to Long-Duration Mission Behavioral Health and Performance Factors”; N. Kanas
    and D. Manzey, Space Psychology and Psychiatry (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2003).


81. W. E. Sipes and E. Fiedler, “Current Psychological Support for US Astronauts on the
    International Space Station” (paper presented at “Tools for Psychological Support During
    Exploration Missions to Mars and Moon,” European Space Research and Technology Centre
    [ESTEC], Noordwijk, Netherlands, 26 March 2007).