Crew Selection

Prevention (prophylaxis) of asthenia (psychogenic debilitation) begins with the early selection of crews, which allows time for the personalizing of prevention-treatment plans for each individual crew member, based on their typological traits and their sensitivity to psychotherapy and pharmacological agents.

Another important aspect of crew selection is to optimize the psychological compatability of space crews. Russian behavioral research on Salyut and Mir has shown that on long term flights, compatibility rather than complementarity of crew personality traits is more important, particularly in these areas:

• flexibility
• cautiousness
• high adaptability
• emotional stability
• morality and personal sensitivity
• stable self control and tact in interpersonal interactions
• trustworthiness
• ability to avoid on perceived faults/mistakes of other crew members

Psychological Training

Preflight training in group interactions is vital to the launching of an effective inflight team. The developmental stages in new crews can last from a few months to a few years before a succesfully cooperating team is formed. The progression through the developmental stages have been found to be constant from group to group and are as follows:

• Orientation
  The activity of members is targeted at finding information about their future activity, each other, conditions of joint training. The crew members also compare their own desires and behavior to those of their team members.

• Mutual-Adjustment
  The most severe conflicts and problems, indicative of team compatability, arise in this stage as crew members must compromise on the most important and personal issues and learn to accomodate each other. Hopefully, this stage will give way to the stabilization stage, but other outcomes include the worsening of team interactions and the development of isolated work areas by the crew members, both leading to an unfavorable decline in the effectiveness of the team.

• Stabilization
  The stabilization stage is characterized by the realtively spontaneous coordination of decisions, behaviors, and actions within the crew. Crews that have successfully reached this stage do not exhibit stressful interpersonal conflicts or fundamental disagreements.

• Stable-Adaptation