Psychosocial Aspects of a Flight to Mars

Abstract

The first experiments modeling peoples' behavior during a long-term cosmic flight revealed the need for a more systematic monitoring of the development of the crew's mutual relationships, particularly in terms of collaboration and work-related communication. For this reason, in order to examine team dynamics, the sociomapping method was developed, which was first used in the HUBES 94 and ECOPSY 95 experiments. This method allows for an analysis and visualization of the continuous changes in communication and collaboration, including decreases in their quality and quantity. Sociomapping was used to monitor and analyze the communication and collaboration in simulations of flights to Mars in the Mars-105 and Mars-500 experiments. Based on the aforementioned experiments, it can be noted that statistically significant and nonrandom declines of the quantity and quality of team communication may occur during long-term missions, which may be related to changes in the team's performance. These changes are influenced by exterior stress factors, as well as cultural and linguistic differences and the length of the flight itself. In this chapter, the main findings of the experiment, as well as the resulting recommendations for a successful management of the psychological aspects of a flight to Mars, will be summarized.

Mapping of Communication in Space Crews

“…In earlier studies, a high correlation has been demonstrated, which for example, for the communication frequency scale was 0.65 on average at intervals shorter than six months [38]. Although this high correlation is satisfactory evidence of test-retest reliability, the ability of this question to capture continuous changes has also been documented in various case studies and experiments [38,39,46]. Moreover, the correlation between ratings on the communication frequency and quality scales was found to be moderate (specifically 0.44) based on the data from hundreds of regular work teams [38].…”

“…Data collected using scales measuring the mutual frequency and quality of communication within individual crews were analyzed and visualized using the sociomapping method, which allows for the capture of communication structures and the display of the temporal evolution of relationships [39,46]. Control charts [39,46,50] were additionally used to statistically evaluate the significance of fluctuations over time. These methods will be briefly introduced in the following sections.…”

“…If we have these parameters at regular intervals, we can evaluate sudden fluctuations and changes using control charts [38,46,50]. Tests described for this method enable the determination of whether a deviation from a stabilized state is excessive or whether a specific phenomenon is emerging, whether it is a long-term trend of decreasing or increasing mean level or an increase in volatility [51].…”

“…In 1993, the method of sociomapping [34][35][36] was introduced in the Army of the Czech Republic, enabling the monitoring of communication development within and between teams. Mutual interactions were transformed into a fuzzy model of the mutual communication proximity of individual crew members or teams.…”

“…Apart from the order in which individual members communicate with each other and how they should communicate, a five-point scale assessing the level of communication with individual persons was also utilized for both the current and optimal communication levels. Throughout the experiment, crew members used all values on the scale, with the average test-retest correlation of communication frequency being 0.79 and the average test-retest correlation of optimal communication frequency being 0.84 [39]. One significant decrease in the communication frequency parameter occurred during the seventeenth administration, which was due to the simulated landing on Mars and, thus, the division of the entire group into two subgroups.…”