This textbook covers the range of psychological and interpersonal issues that can affect astronauts living and working in space. It deals with the three major risk areas cited by NASA’s Behavioral Health and Performance Element: Behavioral Medicine, Team Risk, and Sleep Risk. Based on the author’s more than 50 years of experience in space-related activities writing, conducting research, and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, the book follows a comprehensive range of topics that include: cognitive effects; psychiatric issues; cultural influences; salutogenic and positive aspects of space travel; autonomy and delayed communication; current plans to return to the Moon and Mars; analysis of study environments such as the polar regions, submersible habitats, and space simulation facilities; and more. It draws on research, literature, and case studies from the 1950s onward, showing readers in a natural and accessible way how the field has progressed over time. The book contains ample end-of-chapter summaries and exercises as well as a complete glossary of key terms. As such, it will serve students taking courses in aerospace psychology, psychiatry, sociology, human factors, medicine, and related social sciences, in addition to space industry professionals and others interested in the complexities of people living and working in space.

Brave astronauts, flaring rockets, and majestic launches are only one side of the story of spaceflight. Any mission to space depends on years-if not decades-of work by thousands of dedicated individuals on the ground. These are the people whose voices offer a friendly link to Earth in the void of space, whose hands maneuver rovers across the face of planets, and whose skills guide astronauts home. This book is a long-overdue history of three major centers that have managed important missions since the dawn of the space age. In Mission Control, Michael Johnson explores the famous Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany-each a strategically designedmicro-environment responsible for the operation of spacecraft and the safety of passengers. Johnson explains the motivations behind the location of each center and their intricate design. He shows how the robotic spaceflight missions overseen in Pasadena and Darmstadt set these centers apart from Houston. He argues that the type of spacecraft and the missions they controlled-not the nations they represented-defined how the centers developed, yet they played vital national roles as space technology became a battleground for international power struggles in the Cold War years and even after.