New Mars

With all the travails of an extended mission to Mars, any crew must be an integrated and compatible team. In this article, Roy Clymer argues the case for the self-selection of teams as the way forward for increasing compatibility within teams.

A Mars crew will have to get along and work together for years in a close-quartered, highly dangerous environment beset with expected but unimagined unknowns and crises. What can be done, then, to help insure compatibility? There isn’t even a widely recognized psychological test for compatibility.

A human flight to Mars will be a qualitatively as well as quantitatively different undertaking from all prior space flights. Crew performance will be a fundamental determinant of mission success on a such a flight, and it follows that the interpersonal relations amongst the crew are, or should be, of vital concern to those planning a human mission.

At nearly three years, a piloted Mars mission is twice as long as any single person has been in space, and five times longer than any crew has been together while in space. In addition, the crew will face extreme isolation. Indeed, they perhaps will be the most isolated people in human history, millions of miles and months away from any possibility of rescue or return. Further, they will live and work in an extremely limited amount of space on the transit to and from Mars, and, even when on the Martian surface, will still remain in close proximity to one another. Finally, they will face repeated expected and unexpected threats to their survival. In short, a Mars crew will have to get along and work together for years in a close-quartered, highly dangerous environment beset with expected but unimagined unknowns and crises. Needless to say, these challenges would tax the most developed of us. In such an environment, crew compatibility becomes of absolutely paramount importance. In support of this view, consider these statements by an expert in the field, Dr. Shannon Lucid, speaking of her experiences while on the Mir space station for 188 days:

“For long-duration manned space flight, the most important consideration is not the technology of the spacecraft but the composition of the crew. The main reason for the success of our Mir mission was the fact that Commander Onufriyenko, flight engineer Usachev and I were so compatible.”

“First, the station [the International Space Station] crew must be chosen carefully. Even if the space station has the latest in futuristic technology, if the crew members do not enjoy working together, the flight will be a miserable experience.”

What can be done, then, to help insure compatibility? I suggest there are two basic approaches, one of which is science. Psychology is the study of behavior and the science with the most to say about compatibility. By poking, prodding, and testing, a team of experts makes the decision: “This is the best team.” However, there isn’t even a widely recognized psychological test for compatibility. Usually, it’s inferred from people’s responses on psychological tests or scales. That is, if two people perform similarly on various psychological tests, we assume they are compatible. However, I would submit that it borders on arrogance to believe our science has advanced to the point of being able to predict something so subjectively personal.

In a science fiction novel I read in my youth, the hero was induced to take on a difficult assignment by being told he would be working with a woman who had been determined by the science of the time to be his 99.984% (or some such number) sexually compatible partner. Needless to say, he took the assignment. But unlike much of the science fiction of my youth, this story has not come true. We don’t have any where near that kind of capability to predict compatibility, sexual or otherwise. Is there then a better way? I believe there is, the old fashioned way — let people choose for themselves.

Our responses to one another depend on a large but unknown number of intangibles. We can like or, even more frequently, dislike someone for the most subjective and subtle of reasons, sometimes unknown even to ourselves. The way a person looks, acts, manner of speaking, smells, chews his food, laughs — who knows what — can lead us to have an aversive response to him/her. Each of us can probably give examples from our own experience of people we took an instant dislike to, or of people we know we couldn’t live with for six months let alone three years. Indeed, we have so common an understanding of how difficult it is to be cooped up in a car with people we love for a long vacation drive it is even a basis for commercials. How much more challenging getting along will be on a trip to Mars and back.

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Selecting a Team

Exactly how teams might self-create I don’t know. I can imagine all kinds of possibilities…

How, then, do we let people’s responses to each other work for us? How can we best get a team of compatible people. I propose the following method:

1. Determine and publish minimal qualifications of individual crew members. (Include physical, psychological, and intellectual requirements.)
2. From pool of applicants, accept all those meeting minimal qualifications.
3. Provide arena for applicants to get to know each other while engaging in preliminary training (e.g., basic space flight skills, survival skills, physical conditioning, gear familiarity, etc.)
4. Weed out any individuals with unacceptable performance.
5. Determine and publish the requirements for a team. (e.g., two “Scotties”, two “Spocks”, no two members from any one country.) Specify a time by which the teams must be created.
6. Teams self-create through informal means.
7. Training of teams for Mars mission commences.
8. Performance of team as a whole is the only thing evaluated henceforth.
9. Highest performing team is selected for the mission.

No less important than how the teams are constituted is how the team that gets the mission is selected.

Exactly how teams might self-create I don’t know. I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. A strong leader might recruit people s/he likes for a team. A group with a perceived commonality might join together (e.g. a group of women). Some, “left over” might end up together out of default. Whatever the means, what is important is to let them do it their way. We might provide information and opportunities for the candidates to meet and combine, but the ultimate decision must be theirs. Among other benefits, this ensures they have a sense of responsibility for who they’ve chosen. “Higher ups” can’t be blamed for “forcing” them to be with someone not of their choosing.

No less important than how the teams are constituted is how the team that gets the mission is selected. To the degree that the selection process is seen as fair, the energy of the team members can go into improving performance rather the politicking for selection. The following ideas may help to promote fairness when evaluating team performance.

• The evaluative process must focus on TEAM performance as a whole, not on any individual’s performance.
• Methods of assessing team interpersonal performance must be developed. Possible arenas include: conflict resolution, expressed affect, extent of competitiveness, role fluidity, decision making, problem solving, etc.
• When making crew selection decision, team interpersonal performance should/may be considered more important than mission performance.
• Judges evaluating team performance must reflect composition of teams (i.e., multiple nationalities, genders, intellectual disciplines.)

Taken as a whole, I believe this process will have powerful effects on the team’s interpersonal dynamics. Imagine for a moment what will happen when one member of a team is having difficulty with some assignment, say celestial mechanics. Everyone else on the team will bring all their resources to bear to assist the person having the problem. They will go to great lengths to help each other because they know none of them will get to go unless they all do. This method creates powerful incentives to work together in a cooperative, mutually supportive, and effective manner.

Crew performance depends upon many things, but one is communication. Communication depends on trust. We only speak honestly to those we trust. To others we present that which we believe will be seen as acceptable. Trust has to develop out of experience with risk taking. Risks are only taken where mistakes are not punished. Accordingly, enhancing crew performance requires a process whereby the selection of the crew enables people to take risks to optimize learning without feeling that mistakes made jeopardize their chance to go on a mission. I believe there is a method of crew selection that makes that process more likely.

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Advantages of Team Self-Selection Method

By accepting, respecting, and utilizing the utterly subjective nature of people’s responses to one another, we go along with, rather than potentially oppose, human nature.

Focusing the selection process on teams, rather than individuals, directly fosters cooperation and cohesiveness rather than the appearance of cooperativeness created when individuals compete amongst themselves for a few top slots. Increased cooperativeness and cohesion can be expected to have numerous beneficial effects on team performance.

Both in training and on the mission, allowing people to select their own crew mates provides them a measure of control over their lives in a potentially high stress situation, thereby diminishing stress and improving performance.

Nothing about team self-selection precludes us from utilizing the already acquired knowledge regarding individual suitability for space flight so as to choose the most qualified candidates.

By accepting, respecting, and utilizing the utterly subjective nature of people’s responses to one another, we go along with, rather than potentially oppose, human nature.

Developing social inclusion criteria for team composition, and ensuring a fair team selection process, could greatly enhance the interest in and support for a manned Mars mission amongst all the world’s peoples.

The benefits of this method can be established by research conducted before a team is actually chosen.

This method is not a panacea. Just as we expect members of a crew to have at least a working knowledge of life support systems on a spacecraft, we should help make crews experts in human relations, at least the relations amongst themselves. Even then, it would still take a great deal of work by the team members and assistance from the ground crew to facilitate effective interpersonal relations during a human Mars mission. However, I believe this method would be a valuable part of the process of supporting the astronauts before, during, and even after their flight. They would be going into space with people of their own choosing, who have worked together effectively, and who are all highly motivated. To some degree, they would be able to see themselves as masters of their fate in a highly risky adventure.

Roy Clymer is a long time space fan with a varied background, presently a psychologist at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Filed under: Articles on August 7th, 2001