Behavioral Systems Management of Confined Microsocieties: An Agenda for Research and Applications

Within the context of projected design reference missions for the stepwise explorations of space that will culminate with outposts on Mars [2], a common feature evident within all such expeditionary endeavors over the next half century will be extended stays by human groups in extraterrestrial vehicles and habitats. The imperatives and opportunities associated with the development and configuration of functional ecological models to support the behavioral health of members of such space dwelling human microsocieties must be based upon sound scientific principles for the management of semi-permanent as well as permanent groups having both operational and space science missions [7,8]. The range of challenges to the success of space exploration initiatives, as detailed within recent NASA-funded workshops [68] and related reports and publications [4,44,67], requires consideration of an integrative behavioral systems management technology to operationalize, validate, and implement preemptive and reactive countermeasures to ensure psychosocial stability, crew productivity, and habitability adaptation in response to the unprecedented demands associated with long-duration spaceflight missions. This paper describes such a technology across several levels of individual and crew performances having operational significance for long-duration spaceflight missions.