About the Authors100 papers in a wide range of journals, and his books include Living Aloft: Human
Requirements for Extended Spaceflight, From Antarctica to Outer Space: Life in Isolation
and Confinement, After Contact: The Human Response to Extraterrestrial Life, and
Spacefaring: The Human Dimension. His most recent book, Starstruck: Cosmic Visions
in Science, Religion, and Folklore, describes how rapidly accumulating scientific find-
ings about our place in the universe are encouraging people to seek new answers to
old existential questions.
Harrison is a member of the Permanent SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence) Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics, and
he was a member of NASA’s Space Human Factors Engineering Science and
Technology Working Group. In December 2003, he was Principal Investigator of
a NASA-sponsored conference on new directions in behavioral health, and he
edited a special supplement on this topic for Aviation, Space, and Environmental
Medicine. He is currently involved in planetary defense (protecting Earth from
asteroids and comets) and is heavily involved in the International Academy
of Astronautics’ Space Architecture Study Group, seeking new approaches to
human-centered design.
A former deputy U.S. editor of Systems Research and Behavioral Science, he
may be reached at [email protected], telephone 530-756-2361, or at the
Department of Psychology, One Shields Avenue, University of California Davis,
Davis, CA 95616.
Megan A. Kaminski received her B.S. in human factors psychology from
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and is currently in the master’s program in
Human Factors and Applied Cognition at George Mason University. She has pre-
sented at the 2007 and 2008 Florida Student Conference for Human Factors and
Applied Psychology. She can be reached at [email protected].
Jason P. Kring received his B.A. in psychology from the University of
Colorado, Boulder; his M.S. in experimental psychology from Emporia State
University; and his Ph.D. in applied experimental and human factors psychol-
ogy from the University of Central Florida. He has worked as a researcher at
the United States Army Research Institute in Orlando and interned at NASA’s