16 research outputs found
Tasks and Abilities for the Human Exploration of Mars
No full textA scientific approach to the human exploration of Mars began in 1952 with the publication of Wernher von Braun’s Das Marsprojekt, which described the mathematics necessary to enable interplanetary travel. The English-language version (The Mars Project) led to a series of articles in Collier’s, a weekly magazine with a tradition of influencing public opinion and government policy. The series, titled “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!” was published in eight, beautifully-illustrated installments between 1952 and 1954. Those articles inspired Walt Disney to recruit von Braun and other experts for three episodes of the wildly-popular Disneyland television program; the third episode, “Mars and Beyond,” was broadcast in December 1957, two months after the Soviet Union shocked the world with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, which led directly to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA has been designing equipment, space suits, and space habitats, and preparing plans for the human exploration of Mars since the agency was formed in 1958. Thousands of scientists and engineers at NASA, universities, and aerospace contractors have worked on dozens of plans for a human expedition to Mars since then. However, no one actually identified the tasks that would likely be performed by the explorers, until now.
Dr. Jack Stuster will present the results of a three-year study that addresses several NASA risks by identifying the work that will be performed during an expedition to Mars and the abilities, skills, and knowledge that will be required of crew members. The study began by developing a comprehensive inventory of 1,125 tasks that are likely to be performed during the 12 phases of the first human expeditions to Mars, from launch to landing more than 30 months later. Sixty subject matter experts (including UND faculty and graduate students) rated expedition tasks in terms of frequency, difficulty to learn, and importance to mission success. Seventy-two SMEs placed the physical, cognitive, and social abilities necessary to perform the tasks in order of importance for eight specialist domains identified by the task analysis. The research team then identified, 1) Abilities, skills, and knowledge that can be generalized across tasks; 2) Cross-training strategies; and, 3) Implications for crew size and composition, and for the design of equipment, suits, habitats, and procedures to support sustained human performance during exploration-class space missions. The days of describing an interplanetary mission plan with detailed mathematical calculations and a few sentences of speculation about the humans who would make the journey are gone.https://commons.und.edu/ss-colloquium/1075/thumbnail.jp
Behavioral Issues Associated With Isolation and Confinement: Lessons Learned From Space Analog Experiences
No full textThe history of exploration contains many examples of serious psychological problems in response to the isolation, confinement, and other stressors of expedition life. Accounts of Adolphus Greely\u27s disastrous Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, from which only six of 25 returned in 1884, affected all subsequent polar explorers. The stories of insanity and cannibalism among the Greely party were known by the members of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition 13 years later when they became trapped in the ice and experienced a deep depression that killed one man and drove another to bizarre acts of psychosis. Roald Amundsen, who performed his apprenticeship as an explorer on that expedition, wrote later that, insanity and disease stalked the decks of the Belgica that winter.Similarly, the radio operator on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1912 became psychotic and his ranting threatened to drive other members of the group insane, confined as they were to a small hut in the most inhospitable environment on Earth. That experience led Douglas Mawson to recommend to all future explorers that, In no department can a leader spend time more profitably than in the selection of men who are to accomplish the work. It was in response to these and other experiences that Richard Byrd reportedly included only two coffins, but 12 straightjackets among his supplies during two expeditions to Antarctica in the 1930s. The relevance of living and working at remote duty stations to what might be expected of space travel has been recognized since Werner von Braun looked to Antarctic experiences when identifying possible sources of risk for his Mars Project in 1954. Cosmonaut Valery Ryumin echoed von Braun\u27s concerns when he wrote of his Soyuz space station experience in 1980, All the conditions necessary for murder are met if you shut two men in a cabin measuring 18 feet by 20 and leave them together for two months.
All fields of science and serious inquiry rely on metaphor when access to actual conditions is impossible. Engineers and architects build scale models of buildings, bridges, and aircraft and then subject them to tests of strength or aerodynamics. Medical researchers explore new therapies using what are called animal models, a euphemism for rats, pigs, and other contributors to increased human longevity. Economists create mathematical models to test hypotheses about commerce and finance. And, behavioral scientists look to analogous conditions when it is impractical, impossible, or unethical to subject humans to extreme stress for long durations. For this reason, it has been appropriate to study conditions on Earth characterized by varying degrees of isolation and confinement to extrapolate lessons for the designs of space craft and space habitats. Dr. Jack Stuster will summarize his space analog research and present recent results from the Journals Flight Experiment, the longest-running study to be conducted on the International Space Station.https://commons.und.edu/ss-colloquium/1061/thumbnail.jp
Long-duration isolation and confinement: Human factors issues and research requirements
No full textViewgraphs for a presentation on habitability issues and requirements of long-term isolation and confinement are provided. Analogous situations were scored, design implications were listed, and research requirements that could be satisfied by behavioral studies conducted in the Antarctic are itemized, as well as habitat projects already designed
Tracking Disease Utbreak: Adaptation of a Link Analysis Tool Helps to Map a Measles Epidemic
No full textSpace Station Habitability Recommendations Based on a Systematic Comparative Analysis of Analogous Conditions
No full textConditions analogous to the proposed NASA Space Station are systematically analyzed in order to extrapolate design guidelines and recommendations concerning habitability and crew productivity. Analogous environments studied included Skylab, Sealab, Tektite, submarines, Antarctic stations and oil drilling platforms, among others. These analogues were compared and rated for size and composition of group, social organization, preparedness for mission, duration of tour, types of tasks, physical and psychological isolation, personal motivation, perceived risk, and quality of habitat and life support conditions. One-hundred design recommendations concerning, sleep, clothing, exercise, medical support, personal hygiene, food preparation, group interaction, habitat aesthetics, outside communications, recreational opportunities, privacy and personal space, waste disposal, onboard training, simulation and task preparation, and behavioral and physiological requirements associated with a microgravity environment, are provided
Aggressive driving enforcement : evaluation of two demonstration programs
No full textThis report presents the results of a study conducted to assess the effects of two programs that were implemented to reduce the incidence of aggressive driving. The programs were conducted by the Marion County Traffic Safety Partnership (a consortium of agencies in the vicinity of Indianapolis, Indiana), and the Tucson, Arizona, Police Department. The programs each received grants of $200,000 from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to support the special enforcement and public information and education (PI&E) components. Program managers were required, as conditions of the grant, to 1) focus their enforcement efforts on key aggressive driving infractions in carefully-selected zones within their communities; 2) develop and implement PI&E campaigns to publicize the special enforcement efforts; and, 3) provide the data and other information necessary to prepare this evaluation. Program managers were encouraged to consider innovative approaches to both special enforcement and publicity. Samples of vehicle speed, collected unobtrusively in the special enforcement zones, and crash incidence served as the primary measures of program effect. Average speeds declined slightly in Marion County and at a greater rate in Tucson. The total number of crashes in the Marion County special enforcement zones increased by 32 percent; moreover, the Marion County zones experienced a six percent increase in the proportion of all crashes with primary collision factors (PCFs) associated with aggressive driving, despite the extensive publicity and special enforcement efforts. The number of crashes in Tucson?s special enforcement zones increased by ten percent, but the number of crashes with aggressive driving PCFs increased by less than one percent. More important, the proportion of all crashes with target PCFs decreased by eight percent. That is, crash incidence increased overall in Tucson?s zones, but the proportion of those crashes with aggressive driving PCFs declined. The change in proportion of crashes with the target PCFs provides a better measure than crash frequency because it eliminates the effects of changes in traffic volume and other factors that might have contributed to the overall increase in crash incidence. Study results suggest that limited resources might be better spent on officer labor than on publicity, and that focusing enforcement responsibility on a small team assigned full-time to the special enforcement patrols might be more effective than sharing the responsibility among a large number of officers as occasional overtime duty. References, 2 appendices, 10 tables, 7 figures; 55 p
