The Challenges of Long-Duration Spaceflight to Astronaut Safety,Performance,and Mission Success

Abstract

The spaceflight environment is characterized by temperature extremes, microgravity, solar and galactic cosmic radiation, lack of atmospheric pressure, and high-speed micrometeorites. While these factors introduce a host of physiological, biomedical, and environmental stressors to flight crews, long-duration spaceflight has revealed an additional group of stressors that also impact flightcrew performance and behavior. Some believe that the most critical problems limiting long-duration spaceflight, after the biomedical, are the behavioral and performance (Atkov, 1996; Kozlovskaya, 1996). Flight safety and mission success depend on crew performance (Nechaev, Myasnikov, & Stepanova, 1996; Shields & King, 1998), as well as spacecraft system performance. Russian and American experience with long duration spaceflight has revealed that the stressors of long-duration spaceflight impact human performance more significantly than in short-duration flight (Jdanov, 1996; Kanas, 1985; Nichols, 1987). Accordingly, operation of the International Space Station (ISS) will necessitate greater resource allocation devoted towards understanding, developing, and applying effective performance, human factors, and psychologically-oriented countermeasures aimed at enhancing flight crew functioning. This paper is oriented towards providing human factors professionals with a high-level understanding of the stressors experienced by astronauts with long-duration spaceflight. For a more complete overview of the field of astronaut psychology and performance, see Whitmore and McQuilkin, 1998; Myasnikov and Zamaletdinov, 1996; Manzey, Schiewe, and Fassbender, 1995; Santy, 1994. The purpose is not to critique flight crews—as they are comprised of exceptional individuals who must deal with exceptional circumstances. As psychologists and human factors professionals, our purpose in illuminating these stressors and their effects is to apply our understanding of human performance and behavior to increase the overall safety, well-being, health, and performance of flight crews in preparation for ISS.

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