Space travel is tough on the human body. But what does it do to the human mind? Gary Beven, a space psychiatrist at NASA, answers our questions about how humans adapt to space, and what we have to do to go to Mars.
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With twenty missions under his belt, he has a lot of practical experience with astronauts. Since space travel and psychiatry are two areas that are mined, often incorrectly, for drama, I ask what he has found to be the biggest misconceptions of psychiatry and space travel. Generally, it is the drama that’s the problem. Even in the 1990s, when the first NASA astronauts went up on Mir, their main problems were isolation and depression, not dramatic behavioral issues or space-based illness.
Beven explained:
One misconception is a concern or theory that the spaceflight environment may be inherently harmful or hazardous, from a psychological standpoint. Sustained life in microgravity on board a space vehicle does not appear to cause psychological decrement or psychiatric symptoms unique to that environment.
Any previously reported behavioral health problems have appeared to occur because of common earth bound issues. For instance, placing crews that have potential personality conflicts in a smaller space station environment, with few recreational outlets, and then overwork them or not provide enough meaningful work to do.