In this article, we will discuss NASA’s study on how close relationships among astronaut crews, including romantic relationships, affect long-duration space flights. This study comes as part of the American agency’s preparations to send humans to Mars through the Artemis campaign, which involves round trips that are likely to take years for groups consisting of about half a dozen astronauts. Engineers say that reaching the red planet using current rocket technology will take at least nine months. These journeys are expected to differ from the Apollo missions to the moon, partly due to delays in communication between astronauts and ground controllers. This delay will increase the isolation of the crews.
The Ongoing Study
Maxima Research Company of Florida is leading this ongoing study titled “Wives and Threesomes at 140 Million Miles: Factors Influencing Personal Relationships in Long-Duration Space Missions,” which involves Sean Burke, a professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida. Although NASA has gained a reputation for avoiding discussions about sex in space, it does not shy away from studying how marital relationships can generally affect crew dynamics. Jim Driscoll, one of the principal investigators on the project and a research psychologist at Maxima, states that the Johnson Space Center’s funding of this study, which began in 2020, reveals, despite the silence, the agency’s vigilance regarding potential intimacy among crew members. Although the study may not read like an exciting romantic fantasy novel, the work suggests that NASA is aware that human nature does not stop just because humans have left Earth.
The First Married Astronauts in Space
This study comes 30 years after astronauts Mark C. Lee and Jan Davis traveled aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, becoming the first married couple in the world to go to space together. NASA selected the couple for the crew before they were married. When agency officials learned of the relationship, they decided to exempt the usual rule against couples serving on the same crew assignment due to insufficient time to train appropriate substitutes. It is unclear how Lee and Davis’s relationship, who have since divorced, affected the mission. Various news reports have indicated that they worked alternating 12-hour shifts during their time in space, limiting their interactions. Neither spoke in detail about this, nor did their colleagues. Davis no longer responds to requests for interviews for this series.
The reason for this caution might be the media’s fascination with whether any human has engaged in sex in the zero-gravity environment of space, a question NASA has shut down for decades with a brief denial. In a statement to Mashable, spokesperson Sandra Jones said that instead of having a policy regarding sexual activity in space, the agency relies on the professionalism and judgment of astronauts. Meanwhile, the agency focuses on how to maintain astronauts’ health, with challenges including bone and muscle degradation and exposure to cosmic radiation. The astronaut Mark C. Lee and Jan Davis’s trip aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992 made them the first married couple in the world to go to space together. Credit: NASA/Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
The Current Study
So far, researchers studying relationships in NASA’s space missions have conducted interviews with current and former astronauts to compile their report. In addition to mutual attraction relationships, psychologists are studying close working relationships and friendships, and how small factions within crews can impact missions. Their research aim is to assist crew members and leaders in spotting warning signs of relationships that may become troublesome and provide suggestions on how to intervene.
On
Researchers have observed that astronauts were more open in discussing the possibility of relationships among their military crew members, who are bound by strict policies prohibiting camaraderie. Driscoll, who previously conducted research for the Department of Defense, believes this may be due to the diverse experiences and backgrounds of modern astronauts – professional men and women who are not only pilots in the Navy and Air Force but also engineers, scientists, and doctors. They are accustomed to seeing colleagues dating or even marrying at NASA and in other office environments. Why would space be different?
The Love Triangle Among Astronauts
NASA faced embarrassment in 2007 when astronaut Lisa Nowak attacked a woman who had begun dating space shuttle astronaut William Oefelein. Nowak and Oefelein had a previous relationship. Police said Nowak drove more than 900 miles from Houston to Orlando, Florida, where she attacked Colleen Shipman, a captain in the Air Force, with pepper spray in an airport parking lot. Nowak had another car with additional supplies such as a BB gun, rubber tubing, and trash bags. But perhaps the most unforgettable detail: Nowak wore a diaper so she wouldn’t have to stop to use the bathroom along the way, according to police. She pleaded guilty to charges of felony burglary and misdemeanor battery, losing her job at NASA and the Navy. Oefelein and Shipman later married.
This high-profile incident raised questions about the rigor of NASA’s astronaut screening process and highlighted how dangerous a love triangle or nervous breakdown could be if it occurred in a small, confined spacecraft, millions of miles away. These psychological and social issues could pose crises for long-term missions to Mars, according to Alex Lindyker, a human sexuality expert and founder of the Space Research Institute.
Sexual Harassment in Simulated Space Missions
These are not just hypothetical scenarios; serious personal conflicts have occurred in space missions in the past, particularly in 1973 among astronauts at Skylab and mission controllers on Earth. With the crew stressed and sleep-deprived, mistakes began to multiply. For a short period, astronauts stopped communicating with mission control.
After several months in space, astronauts tend to experience fatigue and imbalance, allowing stress levels to rise, according to Simon Dube, a psychologist and research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. “Just add in loneliness and sexual frustration and rejection from a partner and longing for loved ones, shake it up well, and you get a very explosive mixture,” he said during a session at the South by Southwest festival in March.
Judith Lapierre, a researcher in social medicine and Canadian health promotion, said she was repeatedly kissed against her will by her Russian commander in 1999 during a 110-day experiment in Moscow simulating a long-duration space flight. Lapierre, who was working for the Canadian Space Agency and specialized in psychological and social research in space, was the only woman among an international crew of eight in an isolation chamber. When she reported to the Russian authorities overseeing the project that she was being sexually harassed, it was largely dismissed as a cultural misunderstanding and ignored in various media.
Sexual harassment has been a serious issue in other isolated and extreme environments. The National Science Foundation released a report last year based on surveys and interviews with members of the U.S. polar program. It found that 72 percent of women viewed sexual harassment as a problem, and 42 percent felt that sexual assault was an issue.
Relationships
In Space Missions
Relationships, whether friendships or non-romantic connections, can form naturally during shared hours and years of training, even before the mission begins. There are clear benefits: people who care about each other work well together, and they can support each other during tough times, helping to overcome loneliness and homesickness. These strong bonds can enhance crew cohesion.
“You’re almost setting the stage for these strong relationships to form. On one hand, that’s what you want,” Driscoll said. “I don’t think you can avoid this strong attachment that occurs, nor do you want to avoid it in the selection and training of crews.”
He says the solution is not to try to predict and prevent relationships, but to provide astronauts with some strategies to deal with them if they cause problems. “So they don’t have to rely on luck,” he said.
Source: https://me.mashable.com/space/34748/does-space-romance-make-nasa-cringe-its-complicated
Leave a Reply