The psychological well-being of astronauts and crew cohesion are fundamental elements for the success of long-duration missions. ESA has chosen Deep Blue to teach its astronauts how to build effective teamwork.
Lesson learned from MIR
On February 24, 1997, a fire broke out on the Russian space station Mir: one of the worst accidents ever experienced on an orbiting vehicle. Russian astronaut Aleksandr Lazutkin recalls the moment, “As I spotted smoke inside the spacecraft, my first instinct was to open a window, that’s when I got really scared – there’s no escaping smoke in space, no chance to simply ventilate the room.” Although the crew managed to douse the flames, it was just the beginning of a series of unexpected events faced by the astronauts participating in the Shuttle-Mir program mission from the United States and the Soviet Union. They encountered onboard system failures, a hair-raising near-collision with a cargo shuttle, a disorienting blackout causing a loss of attitude and subsequent tumbling in space. These events were enough to push even the most exceptional astronauts to their mental limits. Like Jerry Linenger, the American astronaut who spent 132 days on Mir (a record for an American): during the mission, he complained of a sense of isolation and frequently argued with Ground, the mission control centre (all history is well collected in the book Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir by Bryan Burrough, based on hundreds of hours of interviews with astronauts, controllers, scientists, and psychologists).
FROM SHUTTLE TO SPACE STATION: ASTRONAUTS SPEND MORE AND MORE TIME IN SPACE
“With the Shuttle-Mir program, American astronauts went from missions aboard the shuttle, lasting 1-2 weeks, to spending months on the space station, sometimes without adequate training and psychological preparation” explains Simone Pozzi, CEO of Deep Blue and expert in human-centred innovation in high-tech sectors. “It’s no coincidence that there were cases of disagreements within the crew, friction with ground support personnel and astronauts refusing to talk to Ground”. The criticism of the program – especially regarding safety – helped improve devices and procedures; above all, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) realised that it had underestimated the emotional, psychological, and social difficulties faced by astronauts engaged in long-duration space missions. It was a turning point: from the 2000s onwards, agencies began to pay more attention to the psychological and behavioural aspects of the selection and training of astronauts.
TRAINING FEATURES AND ATTITUDES FOR TEAMWORK
“Today, an aspiring astronaut is no longer only asked to excel in their professional field,” says Angela Donati, psychologist and Senior Training Consultant at Deep Blue. “They must also meet character requirements identified both to exclude the presence of psychopathologies and to steer the selection towards the most suitable candidates: flexible, aware, cooperative, suitable for working in teams.” These skills are part of an individual’s personal character but can be “trained” to improve team cohesion and thus contribute to the success of a mission.
DEEP BLUE TRAINS NEW ESA ASTRONAUTS: THE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR & PERFORMANCE COURSE
“The true frontier of future space exploration lies in human performance, which is fundamental for facing unexpected and hostile situations, and for maximising the potential of astronaut teams currently engaged in missions lasting several months. As we look ahead to missions planned for the Moon or Mars, these expeditions could potentially span years” says Pozzi. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) know this too, by having entrusted Deep Blue with a “Human Behaviour & Performance” course to be held for new astronauts Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois and Marco Sieber, selected last November from over 22,500 candidates submitted by ESA member states (they will be joined by Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency). The course – a total of 40 hours – will take place from May 4th to 12th at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.
“The astronauts themselves acknowledge that working in a team is crucial to the success of a mission, getting along with colleagues even in stressful situations and difficulties, being self-aware that each personal action has an impact on the entire crew,” continues Anna Giulia Vicario, Human Factor Researcher & Consultant at Deep Blue, who with Pozzi and Donati will be teaching the course at the ESA. With extensive experience in this field, each of them provided training on the same subject to personnel from aerospace control centres, aviation flight controllers, firefighters and drone pilots.
“Our aim is to equip the new astronauts with the crucial tools to make the most of each situation, in teamwork and in situations of uncertainty, all while without overwhelming them too much” says Donati. After all, the “magnificent 5” are just at the beginning of a long training program (the course is part of the first year of basic training, followed by another for the International Space Station and finally, once assigned to a mission, a more specific one) that will keep them busy in the classroom and in the field. “While pilot training protocols demand a high level of precision, the intensity placed on astronaut training protocols is remarkably more complex” explains Pozzi. “Across the extensive mission preparation, which can span up to 7 years, an astronaut repeats the same actions hundreds of times until the procedures become as natural as breathing. Then they move on to the analysis and management of ‘unexpected events’, which are always present in a space mission”. At the heart of it all, an astronaut is an explorer of an unpredictable world.
BEHAVIOURAL SKILLS: A MATTER OF SURVIVAL
The course includes different modules: communication, to train communicative clarity on board and with control centres; teamwork, to learn how to quickly face issues within a group of people with different expertise; leadership and followership, to perform the role required by a task; conflict management, to learn how to manage conflicts according to different situations; self-care, to train the ability to be self-aware, to recognize and manage signs of stress; human error, to understand the conditions in which it occurs more frequently and improve its management; multicultural factors, to learn how to relate to astronauts with different cultures and backgrounds (e.g. military personnel and scientists). “For an astronaut, training these behavioural skills is essential to achieve goals and complete missions, but above all, because they save your life”, says Donati. “Some modules will be introduced by Luca Parmitano, who will explain to new astronauts why certain issues are important. His firsthand experience and insights on effective space interactions add undeniable weight to the training” adds the trainer.
COMMUNICATION AND LEADERSHIP
“Let’s start by talking about communication because knowing how to communicate clearly and concisely is essential both in exchanging information with the Ground and within the crew – says Donati – communication plays a strategic role in rapidly building a cohesive team. Working on the efficiency of communication involves starting with an individual analysis of one’s communicative characteristics: to be able to understand when the receiver perfers another communications style and learn how to be effective”.
Another fundamental aspect concerns leadership, which exhibits distinct characteristics in the context of space compared to traditional work environments: it is peer leadership, as Parmitano says, necessitating a thoughtful approach in its application. “Being in charge of a mission means facilitating its smooth running and ensuring the well-being of the crew, by seeking a non-hierarchical approach to sharing” explains Donati. “Additionally, being a follower is of utmost importance: you have to be able to make yourself very swiftly available, considering the sudden nature of role changes. Failing to do so would compromise the performance of operations.” How do you train to be both a leader and a follower? Again, it is a matter of awareness. “Initially, we will highlight the implication of these terms in a space mission. Then we will foster astronauts to work on themselves, reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses regarding the two roles. This will be followed by practical exercises to apply the acquired knowledge,” continues the trainer.
“With respect to self-awareness, there are two issues to emphasise” adds Pozzi. “On the one hand, astronauts will be exposed to stimuli never encountered before, and this could reveal previously unknown aspects of their character. Part of the training is precisely to make them understand it: to raise their awareness of mechanisms and reactions which can occur in situations of stress and extreme confinement”. On the other hand, it is essential to acknowledge that they will collaborate with an international team of people, who have received different training. “Thus, fostering self-awareness enables open and transparent communication with others, all aimed at effective teamwork”.
A SPACE PSYCHOLOGY
“What is beginning to be put into practice with astronauts, in terms of behavioural training, partly arises from studies conducted in other types of extreme environments with similar isolation characteristics and potential danger to human life, such as stations in Antarctica. “Research in this field is in its early stages, but it will become increasingly important in aerospace because we are preparing for increasingly longer missions and in increasingly extreme and diverse environments like the Moon or Mars” says Donati.
Five years ago in Antarctica, there was an incident that made headlines. At the Russian Bellingshausen Antarctic station, a remote outpost on King George Island, 120 km from the coast, scientist Sergey Savitsky stabbed and seriously injured his colleague Oleg Beloguzov. “He was revealing the endings of detective novels to me,” he justified. Of course, the reason for the attack was related to quite different reasons: an emotional breakdown triggered by months of isolation in an extreme environment, which, for many characteristics – isolation, lack of sensory stimuli, absence of escape routes – is similar to the space environment. It can serve as a model for studying the mental health of astronauts. In a 2021 paper published in the Acta Astronautica Journal, scientists monitored the emotional states of over one hundred people confined to Antarctic stations for a period of nine months. What came out was the “collapse” of positive emotions (satisfaction and enthusiasm) and especially the strategies to regulate them (such as looking at the good side of things or trying to change their mindset towards a critical situation). The scientists also observed an increase in negative emotions, but with a more variable trend and still linked to the onset of physical disturbances. Results that can also be useful in predicting the “emotional risks” astronauts face.
Certain psycho-physical phenomena associated with prolonged space stays are already documented, such as microgravity-induced illusions, leading to body parts appearing to be in incorrect positions (like “feet overhead”), or sensory hunger arising from the lack of environmental stimuli (which has been found to be alleviated through the use of music).
Nevertheless, further studies are needed to delve into the psychological-behavioural mechanisms triggered by space confinement, thereby enhancing the selection, training, and astronaut management processes.
Consequently, many advocate for the need to build a new branch of psychology dedicated exclusively to studying the effects of spaceflight on the human mind, in preparation for future missions as well as space tourism ventures. In essence, as NASA psychologist Albert Holland said: “What we do is take ordinary people, put them in an extraordinary environment, asking them to live and work together”. Hence, they should have at least the psychological resources to do their best.
