coherent plans are evolving for the logical progression of humankind into space, and within the next generation or two many of these plans will be translated into realities. New social and technical systems are needed to meet the transition from visiting space to living in space. Today's space vehicles are stolid workhorses. They include heavy lift launch vehicles, capable of lifting a Salyut or Mir into orbit; robot resupply vehicles, and reusable space buses. The shuttle has a large cargo bay that can carry modules for building space stations, and because of this bay it is one of the few space vehicles that can return payloads from orbit, a handy feature for economic production. The space crews of today differ from those of the 1960s along a number of critical dimensions. Because it will be necessary to maintain a large corps of astronauts to staff multiple and large-scale missions, the pool of astronauts will necessarily be less select than it was in the past. Since it will be necessary to perform many different functions in space, crews will include men and women of many different backgrounds. To ease the financial burden on any individual nation, and to transform the exploration and settlement of space from a competitive to a cooperative endeavour, international crews are likely. Yet, there are certain carry-overs from the days of the great Moon race. The astronauts remain a highly elite group of societal exemplars, well shielded from inquisitive professionals. And, while the National Commission urges international cooperation, it warns us against excessive technology transfer and against signing treaties sponsored by organizations that are heavily influenced by our adversaries [7]. Human Challenges in Long-duration Flights It is now time to rethink the human element in outer space [8, 9, 10]. A thorough understanding of human behaviour is necessary for survival in outer space. For the foreseeable future, each participant in a space mission will have essential functions to perform. Disease, a broken limb, a psychiatric episode, or any other malfunction that incapacitates the person means that either his or her job does not get done, or it is assumed by somebody else. In the latter case, the substitute is overloaded, with the possible result that he or she may also become incapacitated. Intergroup hostilities along occupational or ethnic lines may undermine the instantaneous teamwork that is needed to avert a crisis. Of course, flagging motivation, emotional instability, communication gaps, and factionalism do not have to end in a catastrophe in order to be costly. Given the expense of sending people into space, it is necessary to minimize problems that reduce long-term productivity. Thus far, the psychological and social difficulties associated with spaceflight appear to have been relatively minor. There are reported instances of astronauts using strong language, removing biosensors, and going ‘on strike', although the gravity of such events has been hotly debated [11, 9, 7], Additionally, both astronauts and cosmonauts have undergone periods of euphoria and there is some evidence that at least one crew of cosmonauts begged for early release from a mission. But nobody has really ‘cracked', no mission has been aborted due to psychological or social factors; the usual tale is one of astronauts and cosmonauts rising to meet each challenge. Past success does not guarantee future success, and there are good reasons to remain on guard [9, 10, 11]. First, as we dig deeper and deeper into the pool to choose first 1000, then 10000, and then 100000 spacefarers, the odds increase of selecting people who lack competence, emotional stability, or the social skills necessary to get along with others under spaceflight conditions. How do we select people to compose productive, harmonious space crews? Second, tomorrow's space voyagers are likely to
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