July 1985
From The Space Library
After preliminary examination of Spartan 1 data, mission manager Dave Shrewsberry said the spacecraft appeared to have performed well during the Space Shuttle 51-G mission. Astronauts deployed the spacecraft on the fourth day of the mission into a free-flying orbit and retrieved it on the sixth day, Goddard News reported. Final evaluation required analysis of Spartan l's tape recordings.
"Although the grapple fixture wasn't pointed in the direction we thought it would be when we were retrieved," Shrewsberry said, "that is not a matter of concern. The running lights were on and the experiment doors closed, indicating that the program we had computed was completed." Early indications also showed that all six of the Get Away Special experiments turned on during the mission. (GSFC News, July 85, 1)
Yvonne Clearwater, in an article in Psychology Today, described the work of the Space Human Factors team, an interdisciplinary team of which she was a member, to determine what could make the proposed space station a congenial habitat for living and performing highly sophisticated work. The team-representing psychology, architecture, and engineering-was defining what "habitability" meant in space by looking at the critical relationships among environment, psychological well-being, and performance.
Clearwater said the team would begin by developing architectural and interior-design guidelines based on behavioral research. NASA contractors and development engineers at Johnson Space Center would then use the guidelines in designing and building the space station.
The team would then turn to examining social and psychological issues such as crew selection, training, and support; organization and management; and operations planning. Although recommendations would focus on the physical and social-psychological environments separately, the team had to consider all the factors together in the planning process, because they interacted in the real world, whether on earth or in space.
In contrast to the Soviets, who placed a high priority on the mental wellbeing of their space crews, NASA originally had focused on technological engineering rather than behavioral science. In addition, the early astronauts had little interest in psychological support or intervention; reportedly the first seven U.S. astronauts announced they would not tolerate psychologists.
Clearwater pointed out, however, that NASA had grown more sophisticated and more sensitive to the fact that body-mind-environment interactions affected the health and performance of people. The formation of the Space Human Factors Office at Ames Research Center reflected NASA's commitment to psychological as well as physical health of space workers.
The challenge was to troubleshoot the proposed space station systems and settings while they were still being developed conceptually by, first, identifying the environmental conditions likely to be significant stressors; second, defining the kinds of psychological, emotional, and behavioral problems these could produce; and finally, showing how such problems might affect work performance.
Clearwater concluded that by defining and meeting human needs in space environments, it might be possible to create more supportive places for living and working on earth. (Psychology Today, July 85, 34)
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