Nick Kanas, M.D., Vyacheslav Salnitskiy, Ph.D., Ellen M. Grund, M.S., Vadim Gushin, M.D., Daniel S. Weiss, Ph.D., Olga Kozerenko, M.D., Alexander Sled, M.S., and Charles R. Marmar, M.D., Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 71(9, Suppl.):A11-16, 2000.
Methods: To evaluate this impact, we studied 5 astronauts, 8 cosmonauts, and 42 American and 16 Russian mission control personnel who participated in the Shuttle/Mir space program. Subjects completed questions from the Profile of Mood States, the Group Environment Scale, and the Work Environment Scale on a weekly basis during the missions. Subscale scores from these measures were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA to examine mean differences as a function of country (American versus Russian), group (crewmember versus ground personnel), and their interaction.
Results: Americans scored higher on measures of vigor and work pressure, and Russians scored higher on measures of managerial control, task orientation, physical comfort, self discovery, and leader support (which also showed a significant interaction effect). Mission control subjects scored higher than crewmembers on four measures of dysphoric emotions, but both groups scored significantly lower than published norms from other studies. There were significant interaction effects for subscales measuring leader support, expressiveness, and independence, with the American astronauts scoring the lowest of all comparison groups on all three subscales.
Conclusions: In future long-duration space missions, countermeasures should focus on providing support for crewmembers from a culture in the minority, and crews should include more than one representative from this culture. Positive aspects of the interpersonal environment should be enhanced. The needs of mission control personnel should be addressed as well as those of crewmembers. Index Terms: Interpersonal Issues, Cultural Issues, Shuttle/Mir, Space Program