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While the 20th century was marked by the space race, and consequently the race to put the first man on the moon, in the 21st century, we have set our sights on Mars.
Elon Musk has been talking about Mars for some time, with projects to develop a Martian settlement already underway.
NASA and SpaceX also worked together, recently launched the first fully operational manned mission on the International Space Station.
The first is also training astronauts for a possible trip to the red planet.
But you don’t just fly to Mars and aren’t chosen lightly for the mission.
The first human mission will require the astronauts more than, as CNN puts it, “the right things”.
Before continuing, earlier this year they put together a short video of what life on Mars should be like:
NASA sent its Perseverance Rover to Mars in July to get an idea of the terrain, which, predictably, is pretty rough.
The journey there will be just as hard and long, which means that those aboard the spaceship that will transport them there will have to possess a certain skillset, so far not part of the usual criteria for space travel.
Conscientiousness, defined as “wanting to do what is right, particularly to do one’s job or duty well and completely,” has emerged as the basic requirement for astronauts who will live and work on the surface of Mars millions of miles away. Earth, according to a new study.
This trait has been identified as more important than honesty, humility, emotionality, extroversion, openness and pleasantness.
“Conscientiousness, an individual personality trait, can be thought of as a shared team resource,” said Julia McMenamin, the study’s first author and PhD student in psychology at Western University in Canada, in a statement.
“The more conscientious a team is, the better it will likely be in completing tasks.”
The study was published in the journal Astrobiology, and it also uncovered traits NASA should avoid in an astronaut – or “Marstronaut” – such as “social laziness,” or the habit of a team member making less effort than when he works alone.
Image: Analog astronauts Iñigo Muñoz Elorza and Carmen Köhler perform an experiment during the 2018 mission in Oman, photo: AMADEE-18 analog space mission
I think this applies to all sectors.
NASA is aiming for 2030 for the first manned mission to Mars, which depends on the alignment of Mars and Earth for launch and landing. The crew could spend five years together, not including advance training.
Imagine the last group of roommates you had. Now imagine being trapped with them on an isolated planet.
To test this crew dynamics before a real mission, the researchers studied five “astronauts” during an exercise hosted by the Austrian Space Forum in Oman in 2018. Oman’s Dhofar region is similar to the harsh conditions that the team would have to face in the great beyond.
McMenamin was joined by Natalie Allen, a professor of psychology at Western University, and Melissa Battler, Chief Science Officer of the Ottawa-based space exploration company, Mission Control Space Services.
The AMADEE-18 analog space mission lasted four weeks with four men and one woman aged 28 to 38, living in a simulated “Mars” environment. They compiled pre- and post-simulation surveys to identify useful and useless behaviors that could affect the actual mission.
“Familiarity among team members has been shown to help teams work better together, possibly because it gives team members knowledge of each other and helps them communicate better and more efficiently,” McMenamin said.
Predictably, conflict between team members hurts team performance because when people argue, there is less time to complete tasks.
“The interesting thing is that there are different types of conflict, and as long as you avoid interpersonal problems and discussions about how to carry out the activities, the differences of opinion and opinion could actually improve the team’s performance, probably because this allows the team to derive benefit from each member’s knowledge and perspective. “
You can read more about the experiment here.
While many of us tend to think of astronauts as modern day superheroes, they want you to know that they are just as ordinary people as everyone else.
That said, anyone selected for the historic and pioneering mission will need to show unprecedented levels of courage.
This in itself is a superheroic quality.
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