New software to help astronauts soothe their stress levels in space
London, August 26 : Researchers are developing a self-help software that allows
astronauts to carry their counselors with them on a DVD, which would help them soothe
their stress levels more effectively.
When astronauts in orbit stress out, they call Earth to chat with a NASA psychiatrist.
But transmitting messages to Mars and beyond would take 20 minutes or so, requiring new
approaches to mental health in space.
Astronauts and cosmonauts go through psychological screening before they are selected
for duty, and they are trained to deal with the pressures of risky space missions.
Proposed crewed missions to Mars, though, would be a challenge even for these hardened
space farers.
Each leg of the trip would take at least six months, and the entire mission could last
up to three years. Astronauts would live in cramped quarters, their actions constantly
monitored and scheduled by others.
They would face monotonous days in empty space, with nothing to do and nowhere to go if
something went wrong.
"It will be a bit like prison," said Steven Suedfeld of the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Messages to and from Earth would take up to 20 minutes to relay - so travellers to Mars
would be, in many ways, on their own.
But now, according to a report in New Scientist, James Carter of Harvard Medical School
and colleagues are creating a new self-help tool that the astronauts can take with them -
a piece of multimedia-heavy software called the "Virtual Space Station".
It asks crew members to respond to multiple-choice questions about how to handle
various problems that may arise in space and to make lists of their worries and how to
solve them. It focuses on mental health challenges that were highlighted by a panel of 11
astronauts.
One element of the Virtual Space Station is an interpersonal conflict widget designed
by Leonard Greenhalgh of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in Hanover, New
Hampshire.
Its interactive videos ask the user to negotiate and resolve conflicts.
In one scenario, for example, an actor playing a fellow crew member accidentally
unplugs a critical computer and asks the user to cover up the mistake.
The user picks a series of responses, and Greenhalgh appears and suggests what could
have been done differently.
"It's like a choose-your-own-adventure book," said Carter.
The second module of the Virtual Space Station focuses on depression, using an approach
called "problem-solving therapy", which is both clinically effective and relatively simple
to encode into a software program.
The Virtual Space Station team hopes that their tool will prove useful not only for the
space community, but for any ventures that operate in similarly bleak conditions - like
scientists working for months in Antarctica.
--ANI
