Chapter 3
From Earth Analogs to Space: Getting There from Here
Sheryl L. Bishop
Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and School of Nursing
University of Texas Medical Branch
ABSTRACT
The need to find relevant terrestrial substitutes, that is, analogs, for teams oper-
ating in extraterrestrial and microgravity environments is driven by extraordinary
demands for mission success. Unlike past frontiers where failure on the part of vari-
ous groups to succeed represented far more limited implications for continued prog-
ress within these environments, accidents like Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in
2003 underscored the magnified cost of failure for space missions. Where past human
frontiers were characterized by centralized decisions to engage in exploration and
development largely under the dictates of authoritarian governments or individual
sponsors, the exploration of space has been significantly influenced by the general
public’s perception of “acceptable risk” and fiscal worthiness. To date, space mis-
sions have failed due to technological deficiencies. However, history is replete with
examples of exploration and colonization that failed due to human frailties, includ-
ing those that reflect failures of the group. Both historical literature and research on
teams operating within extreme environments, including space, have clearly indi-
cated that psychological and sociocultural factors are components critical for indi-
vidual and group success. Given the limited access to the space frontier and the
investment in collective effort and resources, our ability to study individual and
group functioning in the actual space environment has been, and will continue
to be, severely limited. Thus, studying groups in terrestrial extreme environments
as analogs has been sought to provide predictive insight into the many factors that
impact group performance, health, and well-being in challenging environments.
This chapter provides an overview of the evolution of research utilizing ter-
restrial analogs and addresses the challenges for selecting, training, and sup-
porting teams for long-duration space missions. An examination of how analog