Psychology of Space Exploration
The NASA and Wyle Operational Psychology team, under the leadership of the
Behavioral Health and Performance Group/Space Medicine, NASA, offers pre-
flight training and briefings in such diverse areas as self-care, conflict management
and cultural awareness, and field training. Family readiness is addressed in a brief-
ing focused on the astronaut’s spouse to explain processes such as crew care pack-
ages and private family conferences. Crew care packages are containers of personal
items from family and friends that are sent via Russian Soyuz supply missions and
U.S. Space Shuttle missions to astronauts residing on the ISS. Favorite foods, sur-
prise gifts from the family, and holiday decorations are a few of the items that have
been sent to the ISS in these shipments.
During the flight stage, in addition to the crew care packages and private weekly
videoconferences with families, psychological support services include extensive
communication with people on the ground (including Mission Control person-
nel, relatives, and friends), psychological support hardware and software, special
events such as surprise calls from celebrities, and semimonthly videos with a behav-
ioral health clinician. Astronauts in flight have e-mail accessibility and can use an
Internet protocol phone on board the ISS to call back to Earth. As in the past, ham
radio allows contact between the ISS and schools throughout the world.
A month before their return to Earth, ISS astronauts are briefed on the stresses
and joys of returning home following the deployment. Postflight, there are a series
of debriefings intended to benefit the astronaut and fine-tune the psychological sup-
port program. The astronaut’s spouse is given the opportunity to meet with opera-
tional psychological support personnel to provide the latter with feedback on the
psychological support provided during the mission. Of course, astronauts and their
families can use counseling psychological support services at any time. While this
briefly covers the current state of the art of psychological support for astronauts on
the ISS, psychological support for lunar and Mars missions may have greater con-
straints and force a return to the mindset of earlier explorers and their families.
CONCLUSION
Spaceflight is both demanding and rewarding, and for many years, psychol-
ogists focused on the demanding environment and stressful effects. Throughout
the history of spaceflight, psychologists, psychiatrists, and many other professionals