Interpersonal and cultural issues involving crews and ground personnel during Shuttle/Mir space missions

Background: Anecdotal reports from space and results from simulation studie s on Earth suggest that interpersonal and cultural issues will have an impa ct on the interactions of crewmembers and mission control personnel during future long-duration space missions. Methods: To evaluate this impact, we s tudied 5 astronauts, 8 cosmonauts, and 42 American and 16 Russian mission c ontrol personnel who participated in the Shuttle/Mir space program. Subject s completed questions from the Profile of Mood States, the Group Environmen t Scale, and the Work Environment Scale on a weekly basis during the missio ns. Subscale scores from these measures were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA to examine mean differences as a function of country (American vs. Russian ), group (crewmember vs. ground personnel), and their interaction. Results: Americans scored higher on measures of vigor and work pressure, and Russia ns scored higher on measures of managerial control, task orientation, physi cal comfort, self discovery, and leader support (which also showed a signif icant interaction effect). Mission control subjects scored higher than crew members on four measures of dysphoric emotions, but both groups scored sign ificantly lower than published norms from other studies. There were signifi cant interaction effects for subscales measuring leader support, expressive ness; and independence, with the American astronauts scoring the lowest of all comparison groups on all three subscales. Conclusions: In future long-d uration space missions, countermeasures should focus on providing support f or crewmembers from a culture in the minority, and crews should include mor e than one representative from this culture. Positive aspects of the interp ersonal environment should be enhanced. The needs of mission control person nel should be addressed as well as those of crewmembers.