Psychology of Space Exploration

From Earth Analogs to Space: Getting There from Here

of humans to the stresses of these environments and, ultimately, to space. Space, of
course, will be the final testing ground for our accumulated knowledge. But are we
stuck with choosing between chamber studies and naturally occurring opportunistic
teams in real extreme environments? A more recent, hybrid approach of situating
research facilities within extreme environments offers a good compromise between
the artificial conditions of the laboratory and the open-ended, full access of an expe-
ditionary mission. When teams or individuals operate in extreme environments,
their responses are more purely a product of either situational drivers or internal per-
sonal characteristics. To the extent that an extreme environment is well character-
ized and known, it gains in fidelity and allows more accurate inferences about key
phenomena to be drawn. For these very reasons, Palinkas has strongly argued that
the cumulative experience with year-round presence in Antarctica makes it an ideal
laboratory for investigating the impact of seasonal variation on behavior, gaining
understanding about how biological mechanisms and psychological processes inter-
act, and allowing us to look at a variety of health and adaptation effects.^9

PSYCHOLOGY AND SPACE

One important fact, which has emerged during decades of research,

is that in the study of capsule environments there are few main

effect variables. Almost every outcome is due to an interaction

among a host of physical and social environmental variables and

personality factors. Thus, although we conceptually deconstruct

the situation into particular sources of variance, we must remem-

ber that how people experience an environment is more impor-

tant than the objective characteristics of the environment.^10

Investigations into psychological and psychosocial adaptation to extreme envi-
ronments as substitutes for space are recent phenomena. Expeditions and forays

9. Palinkas, “On the ICE.”


10. P. Suedfeld and G. D. Steel, “The Environmental Psychology of Capsule Habitats,” Annual
    Review of Psychology 51 (2000): 230.