Mental Performance in Extreme Environments (Space and Antarctica) Findings and Countermeasures

In this chapter, we focus on both Antarctic overwinterings and long-duration human spaceflight, where the following three factors are combined in terms of extreme environment: the need for autonomy, as crew cannot always be readily evacuated; the actual operational duty, as crew have duties to perform beyond simulation and scientific research; and the constant risk to life, as crew depend on a life-support technical infrastructure. These features are associated with a number of stressors that can have an impact on physiological and psychological health. Since human behaviour and performance are the acknowledged areas of major risks for operational safety and efficiency, all space agencies have created programs to train astronauts in recognizing these potential stressors and acquiring a new range of cognitive and behavioural skills to cope with them. This is particularly important in successfully preparing for long-duration spaceflight, including future exploration missions to Mars. In addition, specific psychological support programs have been developed and applied during current orbital space missions to help astronauts in maintaining an optimum mental performance state while in space. We illustrate this with a description of the “human behaviour and performance” approach at the European Space Agency. Unlike the standardization and collaboration effort undertaken by space agencies, no international initiatives exist so far to pool resources to cope with human behaviour and performance issues in Antarctica.