John Bosley, the senior partner in this initiative, died on March 13, 2014. RIP, John. The DREAM lives on!

Man has lived and worked in space for more than forty years now. Man has visited the Moon, and occupied scientific outposts in low earth orbit for many months on end. These space workers, however, have had full work schedules, easy communication with Earth, and at least the possibility of Earthside intervention in case of life-threatening circumstances. Future crewed missions—to Mars and back, for example--will entail a vastly longer period of confinement, crew performance demands varying from immediate response to emergencies to prolonged inactivity and boredom, and dwindling communication access to Earth. For much of the mission, unplanned rescue missions will be infeasible. Every component of these long-duration spacecraft must function properly—and achieving this degree of reliability will be a great challenge for America’s scientists and engineers.

We believe that such multi-year mission spacecraft must incorporate a (largely autonomous and on-board) technology sub-system dedicated to guiding mandatory crew task performance and other crew interactions to assure that the astronauts remain productive and mentally "healthy" throughout the mission. This behavior management technology suite will draw on knowledge and tools from many disciplines, notably human factors (including studies of human-robotic systems,) behavioral analysis and other social scientific specialties, artificial intelligence, and electronic performance support systems among others.

Creating and testing this technology to guide crew activities will require that systematic, long-duration applied research and development be performed to insure its capacity to support crew cohesion, group morale and positive individual affect through all phases of the “spacelife” of a multi-year mission. It should include features that detect behavioral precursors of interpersonal conflict, individual anhedonia, and other threats to performance capability. When alerted to such threats to crew integrity, the system will automatically implement effective countermeasures. This behavior technology system will monitor other on-board systems and augment crew capacity to detect and correct operational anomalies, especially mid-mission when low workload may lead to diminished crew alertness.

Behavior management and support system effectiveness and reliability must achieve the same level that any space-qualified system design requires. Resources to support a dedicated laboratory and test facility suitable for performing a reliable, sophisticated crew behavior technology subsystem for long-duration space mission use are available at UMBC. Funding is sought to upgrade the facilities and recruit additional multidisciplinary staff resources so that it is fully capable of developing and conducting long-term testing and validation of space-qualified behavior technology systems. We propose to name this research facility “The Joseph V. Brady Spacelife Support Center” in honor of the late Dr. Joseph Brady (1922-2011), Professor of Behavioral Biology at Johns Hopkins University and a pioneer in studying the effects of psychological stress for NASA in preparation for sending humans into space.

Respectfully submitted,

John Bosley
jandpbosley@verizon.net

Henry Emurian
emurian@umbc.edu

John Bosley, Ph.D., was previously Lead for Mars Mission Human Support System Planning at Booz Allen.

Henry H. Emurian, Ph.D., worked with Joseph Brady for over 35 years in the area of behavioral systems management, to include conducting short-term studies of groups residing in isolation and confinement.


Space Is the Place