Mars Games: Crew Psychosocial Support on Journey to Mars and Beyond

Clifford Hall, Room 210

In support of NASA's Behavioral Research goals, Mars Games - a team of simulated astronauts, current aerospace professionals, and their research colleagues - devised a study to improve work-rest scheduling, optimize leisure-related payloads, test and validate available stress-relief options, support astronaut self-care, and facilitate the psycho-social well-being of self-contained astronaut communities. With an eye towards successful long duration space habitability, the Mars Games study was deployed at HI-SEAS IV, the longest NASA-funded space simulation in history. In order to determine which activities best optimized the ratio of time to stress relief over the mission, Mars Games collected daily data on simulated astronauts’ non-work time activity frequency and the stress-relieving effects of these non-work activities. We then integrated reports of resource limitations, media consumption patterns, individual activities, and group activity frequency. We found specific leisure activities that were consistently associated with lower stress across the team. We also identified between-individuals differences as well as evidence that preferred leisure modalities evolved over time. Mars Games’ unique, crew-driven research revealed a previously unseen pattern of social behavior in “space”. If integrated into future mission infrastructure, the results of this study could lead to significant improvements in astronaut mental health and morale before, during and after deployment in long-duration space missions and analogs.