Psychological aspects of human spaceflight: effects on human cognitive, psychomotor, and attentional performance

Since the first human spaceflight into orbit, the space environment has become one of the most extreme working environments for humans. Staying and working in a space habitat is connected with exposure to a lot of different stressors all of which may entail detrimental effects on human performance and psychological well-being of astronauts. However, the psychological impact of the extreme environmental conditions in space and particularly its impact on mental performance of astronauts has only recently become an object of systematic research. The present work provides a summary of results of different empirical studies on human cognitive, psychomotor, and attentional performance during spaceflight and ground-based simulations which has been conducted by the DLR-Department of Aviation and Space Psychology.