| Human Research Program Gaps: |
(1) BMed-103:What are the validated, efficacious treatments (individual or Team-based) and/or countermeasures to prevent adverse behavioral conditions, CNS/neurological, and/or psychiatric disorders caused by either single and/or integrated exposures to spaceflight hazards during exploration class missions?
(2) BMed-104:Given the potentially negative spaceflight associated CNS changes and behavioral experiences of stressors during long-duration missions (e.g., isolation, confinement, reduced sensory stimulation, altered gravity, space radiation), what are validated modifications to habitat/vehicle to mitigate stressors impacting on CNS / cognition / behavioral health?
(3) BMed-105:Given the potentially negative spaceflight associated CNS/cognitive changes and behavioral experiences of stressors during long-duration missions (e.g., isolation, confinement, reduced sensory stimulation, altered gravity, space radiation), what are validated medical or dietary countermeasures to mitigate stressors impacting on CNS / cognition / behavioral health?
(4) BMed-107:What are the long-term changes and risks to astronaut health post-mission that, when using a continuity of care model, helps retrospectively identify and understand individual susceptibility (e.g., hereditary, dose, thresholds) to mitigate adverse CNS, cognitive, and behavioral health changes resulting from long-duration exploration missions, promoting the behavioral health of current and future crews?
(5) Team-105:We need to identify a set of countermeasures to support team function and enable multiple distributed teams to manage shifting levels of autonomy for all phases of increasingly earth independent, long duration exploration missions.
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| Task Description: |
For future exploration missions, we anticipate a change in the current model of interaction, procedural functioning, and communication between crew members and ground control. Due to the nature of future missions (i.e., missions to the moon and to Mars), there are expected to be communication delays and associated technical difficulties that are currently not experienced. These communication delays and other difficulties will require the crew to work semi-autonomously. Generally, autonomy is defined as the level of discretion and freedom an individual or team is given to perform tasks, including decision making and problem solving, as well as other general duties. It encompasses much more than the freedom to create one’s schedule and outcomes of an autonomous environment are highly inter-dependent among team members. In the context of spaceflight, autonomy refers to the extent to which the crew will act independently from mission control to complete objectives and/or respond to complications/emergency situations when needed due to environmental conditions (i.e., distance), as well as the extent to which the crew will prioritize mission objectives and schedule activities. In a recent workshop held by the Behavioral Health & Performance Research Element, subject matter experts consented to a definition of autonomous operations related to the environmental conditions of long duration missions, hereafter referred to as bounded autonomy. This term involves the conditions, constraints, and limits that influence the degree of discretion by the individual and [crew/team] over their choices, actions and support in accord with standard operating procedures. Based on the novel demands experienced on long-duration missions (e.g., psychosocial adaptation, chronic stress, strain, communication delays, social tension), studying the concept of bounded autonomy is a necessary step in understanding what challenges astronauts may face in these autonomous environments.
Although extensive ground research indicates that team autonomy has many positive effects on valued outcomes including team cohesion, team performance, and well-being of the employees, it is unclear how the effects of autonomy on workplace outcomes may be different in spaceflight. The aforementioned studies were all conducted in organizations, which provide an environment very different from that of a long-duration mission. Past research has not been based on the same level of autonomy as that expected to be experienced by astronauts on long duration missions. Indeed, rather than examining how teams perform in autonomous environments, past research focuses on role- and task- related autonomy. Thus, although autonomy likely affects performance, team cohesion, and interaction between crew and ground on long-duration missions, the relationships between these variables may differ from those observed in terrestrial populations. For example, time delays experienced in long-duration missions would prohibit mission control from providing critical information to the crew. Therefore, the crew must perform independently to achieve certain mission objectives and address possible issues, including accomplishing some tasks in which the crew has received no prior training. It is therefore essential to consider the constraints of a Mars-like condition (i.e., time delays) and conduct research that will investigate the effect of autonomy on team outcomes in isolated, constrained, and extreme environments.
In addition, the extent to which bounded autonomy poses a risk within the Behavioral Health & Performance Research Element needs to be quantified. In order to adequately quantify and reduce risk associated with behavioral health and performance-related issues for long duration missions, it is essential to determine what impact increased autonomy for future crews will have on completing mission objectives and achieving mission success. Currently, Team Gap6 addresses issues related to autonomy, however, future research that is needed in order to sufficiently close this gap has yet to be determined. |
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