Psychology of Space Exploration
As noted in chapter 1, despite repetitive calls for action, empirical research was
slow to accumulate. In the late 1990s, the National Academy of Sciences under-
took a comprehensive review of behavioral and medical issues that we need to
begin to address right now to prepare for future space missions. We consider the
Academy’s report, Safe Passage: Astronaut Care for Exploration Missions, a water-
shed event.^15 Like earlier calls to action, Safe Passage drew attention to many bio-
medical, behavioral, and psychological issues and emphasized their importance for
health, performance, and welfare on extended-duration missions. The timing was
good because its production and distribution coincided with American missions on
board Mir and the first missions to the ISS. Although future-oriented, it was devel-
oped in the context of unfolding events on then-contemporary extended-duration
missions. Most importantly, this work also introduced the concept of behavioral
health, an idea that may be particularly useful because of its breadth and relative
lack of pejorative connotations. According to one recent definition, “Compared
with earlier formulations (such as mental health), behavioral health is less limited
in that it recognizes that effective, positive behavior depends on an interaction
with the physical and social environments, as well as an absence of neuropsychiat-
ric dysfunction. Behavioral health is evident not only at the level of the individual,
but also at the levels of the group and organization.”^16
NASA’s recognition of the field of behavioral health and linking of it to perfor-
mance opened the door for many of the kinds of research that earlier were thought
to be too “soft” to be useful to the space program.^17 Today, NASA has shown
increased recognition of shared perspectives, privacy, leisure-time activity, family
separation and reunification, cultural awareness, the satisfying properties of win-
dows and view ports, and many other topics that were formerly overlooked if not
seen as irrelevant or frivolous. From NASA’s perspective, the significance of these
factors is less in the fact that they can help people “feel good” (although many psy-
- J. R. Ball and C. H. Evans, eds., Safe Passage: Astronaut Care for Exploration Missions
(Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001). - A. A. Harrison, “Behavioral Health: Integrating Research and Application in Support
of Exploration Missions,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76, no. 6, sect. II (June
2005): B3. - Bioastronautics Critical Path Roadmap, http://bioastroroadmap.nasa.gov/index.jsp (accessed 29
March 2008).