Preparing astronauts for the mental and emotional challenges of deep space

Christopher Mason of Weill Cornell Medicine partnered with NASA on this research, and he and Scott Kelly spoke about those findings in 2022 life itself conferencea health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN.

“The weather, of course. Rain, sun, wind,” Kelly said. “And then I miss the people… that are important to you, you know, and to your family and friends.”

As NASA plans to return humans to the Moon and eventually land on Mars through the Artemis program, there is growing interest in understanding the effects that can occur from long-term travel through deep space.

The big question that some scientists have asked is whether humans are mentally and emotionally prepared for such a big leap. In short: how will we deal with it?

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Participants were regularly asked to complete cognitive tests designed for astronauts, relating to memory, risk taking, emotion recognition, and spatial orientation.

The researchers wanted to test whether trying artificial gravity for 30 minutes a day, either all at once or in five-minute bouts, could prevent negative effects. While study participants experienced an initial cognitive decline on their tests, it stabilized and did not last for 60 days.

But the speed with which they learned about feelings generally worsened. During the tests, they were more likely to see facial expressions as angry, rather than happy or neutral.

“Astronauts on long space missions, just like the research participants, will spend extended periods of time in microgravity, confined to a small space with a few other astronauts,” said study author Matthias Basner, MD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman. School of Medicine.

“The astronauts’ ability to correctly ‘read’ each other’s emotional expressions will be of paramount importance for effective teamwork and mission success. Our results suggest that their ability to do so may be affected over time.”

In the study, it was not clear whether this weakness was due to the simulated hypogravity or the confinement and isolation that the participants experienced for 60 days.

These two extreme environments—space and the edge of the world—create a lack of privacy, altered cycles of light and darkness, confinement, isolation, monotony, and prolonged separation from family and friends.

University of Houston psychology professor Candice Alfano and her team designed the checklist as a self-reporting way to track these mental health changes. The biggest change people reported in the two Antarctic stations was a decrease in positive feelings from the beginning to the end of the nine-month stay with no “rebound” effect even as they prepared to return home.

Participants also used less effective strategies for promoting positive emotions.

“Interventions and countermeasures aimed at promoting positive emotions may, therefore, be critical to reducing psychological risks in extreme circumstances,” Alfano said.

Protecting explorers away from home

Researchers are actively studying the idea of ​​how purposeful work can bring mission crews together. When astronauts work As a team, whether on the space station or in a Mars simulator environment on Earth, their cooperation towards a common goal.

And when they’re done with work, they can spend time together watching movies or enjoying recreational activities to combat feelings of isolation.

However, a mission to Mars, which could take months or years depending on the design of the spacecraft, can lead to a sense of monotony and confinement. And the frequent contact with Mission Control and loved ones on Earth will become more turbulent the further away from Earth.

“We need to make sure we have some sort of individual protocol and things that the crew has to do,” Alexandra Whitmer, an element scientist with the Human Research Program, said during an interview with CNN in 2021. “It’s really important for us to understand those individuals who are going to be on this mission.”

One of the amazing discoveries on the space station is how food — and the cultivation of crops — lifts the morale of the crew while maintaining a very important tangible connection to home.

HRP scientists wondered if this sense of complacency could be taken a step further. When astronauts are like Scott Kelly or Christina Koch have returned to Earth after long spaceflights, and talked about not being able to wait to feel the rain or the ocean waves again.