NASA Wants "People People" for Astronaut Core

Hugh Pickens writes "Astronauts are the ultimate Type A personalities but that can backfire during a long stay in space so NASA is taking applications for a new crop of astronauts whose main duties are to conduct experiments, keep the station running and stay in their crewmates' good graces. For that, NASA needs an affable, tolerant guy or gal who is more researcher than jet jockey. 'You need to be more of a people person' to serve on the station, says astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who has flown on the space shuttle and commanded the station. 'You can't just be steely-eyed, no matter how competent.' Coping skills are crucial on a station mission, which lasts three to six months, compared with 11 to 15 days for a shuttle mission. 'Anybody can get along with anybody for a couple of weeks,' says psychiatry professor Nick Kanas who studies astronaut behavior. After a month or two, 'being with somebody for that long starts to wear on you. The jokes get stale. You have to learn new ways of interacting.'"

Comments

Corps!

[StCredZero]

Slashdot needs literate editors!

Prostitutes

[4D6963]

So basically they're looking for people that would help astronauts remain sane and cool during long stays in space. Have they considered prostitutes?

Re:Prostitutes

[Joe the Lesser]

I agree.

All they need is a space station with blackjack and hookers!

Well, forget the blackjack.

And the space station.

Re:Prostitutes

[Rei]

I don't think relationships of any kind in space are a particularly good idea.

Astronaut Qualification Test (1 question)

1. (100 points): If you had a wig, pepper spray, an adult diaper, a new steel mallet, a knife, rubber tubing, and a large garbage bag, what would you do with them?

Re:Prostitutes

[Garridan]

Hmm... that wasn't what the engineers meant when they added "tang" to the pre-flight checklist... but hey, it'd do for me!

Re:Prostitutes

[dtml-try MyNick]

For a short stay it's just a humorous thought at most, most sane humans can cope with a few sexless months.(though sex in space seems like a lot of fun ;p)
But I wonder what NASA is planning to do on longer spaceflights, say 2 to 5 years orso.

If we ever get to the point of far distance human exploring, human interaction including the sexual kind is something that needs to be carefully thought of. I assume they'd want a mixed group of males and females to keep some kind of balance.
It would be inevitable that at least some of them would get a desire for sex during such a long stay. Even if it's just to get some stress relief. One could argue that you should let nature take it's course just as we do in our every day life, but the situation there would be kind of different.

For example, say if you'd have 5 man and 5 woman. And by chance NASA picked 5 stonecoldfreezing woman who'd have no problems with a few years of celibacy and a few of the guys have a bit above average of testosterone... I can imagine some disasterous situations.

Anyone have any idea how these kind of social interaction problems are being dealt with at NASA?

Re:Prostitutes

[jo42]

Build a CO2 scrubber?

Re:Prostitutes

[mbrother]

Sex in space is more complicated than you might think.

A couple of years ago I had an idea for a quasi-non-fiction book in the tradition of the Zombie Survival Guide. Not as creative or as fun. Okay, less creative but more fun. It would be Sex in Space: A Manual for Tourists, written as if it were a few decades in the future and honeymooners could vacation at a space hotel. Inside would be dos and don'ts, guides to which lubes would pose the fewest problems, instructions for how to use various gear in space to keep you and your partner together, etiquette for threesomes (common among dolphins/whales in the ocean who face problems with rebounding away), etc. I was sort of excited about the idea for the book for a while, and then discovered someone else had been as well. There was already a book Sex in Space.

Well, that dampened my enthusiasm. Laura Woodmansee's book has some strengths, but isn't as fun as mine would have been in my not so humble opinion. There's some overlap with ideas I had, and one part just has to be seen to be appreciated. She has a section about the "space kama sutra" that she illustrates with naked action figures "Buck" and "Barbarella" that includes one photo of a dolphin helping out in a threesome and another of one bondage rig. She also describes toys and apparatuses to strap people together using Velcro. Give her big creativity points for all that. She also has a short section on "sexy science fiction" where sex in space in science fiction is discussed.

So I'm not planning to write my version any more as a lot of items would be redundant, but as a science fiction writer who does write stories set in space and who teaches other writers about the space environment, I'm always interesting in learning more about sex in space. Purely research you see.

Woodmansee cannot absolutely confirm the claims that there has been sex in space, both on the part of Americans and Russians, that some others have made. If true, I'm sure it was for research, too. Dedication to science and knowledge, that sort of thing.

In the final days of Mir, there apparently was a porn movie planned to raise money. The plot involved sending up a woman to seduce a reluctant cosmonaut into leaving the station. It never got off the ground, unfortunately, which would have allowed some, ahem, hard data to be obtained about the particulars of sex in space.

What did get off the ground was the Uranus Experiment, as in "I'm not an astronaut but I will send a probe to a Uranus" as seen on t-shirts in my closet. Yeah, that "Uranus." In the late 1990s a porn movie (actually an entire trilogy) was shot using NASA's "vomit comet" which is a plane flying parabolic trajectories that allows several minutes of freefall at a time. The weightless scenes in the movie Apollo 13 were shot on the vomit comet, but no sex scenes. There was a different case for the Uranus Experiment. Or so I'm told. Google your own link to DVDs which can be found at sale prices (and should be deductible if you're a science fiction writer like myself, assuming I'm not too embarrassed to show my accountant the receipt). Woodmansee missed this movie in her book, unfortunately. Anyone seen it willing to admit it and weigh in on weightless sex? Or at least the acting?

And I can't decide if it would be better or worse than sex on Earth. More memorable maybe, but more problematic. And who wants to get hit by stray floaters of any sort?

I'm a stickler for getting the scientific details right in my novels, so I have no choice but to do the research. My readers demand it of me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. With Velcro.

Let me be the first to say

[vivaoporto]

The Simpsons did it first!

NASA Wants "People People" for Astronaut Core...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they've decided Slashdot is the place to look for them.

Note to moderators: the above is "+5 Funny"

Heinlein

[cthulu_mt]

I can't help but think of the opening chapter of Stranger in a Strange Land where they try to find the most compatible crew possible. Good luck with that guys.

Hint: Foot-kilograms is not a unit of measure for crew compatibility.

In flight beverage?

[esocid]

Are they serving complimentary Tang? If so, sign me up.

Whatever It Takes

[tcolberg]

If it nets me a trip to space, I'll be whatever personality they want me to be!

Stop trying to humanize NASA.

[urcreepyneighbor]

Give me a military-style space program filled with men and women from the military, thankyouverymuch. (It'd be an added bonus if they can keep their dicks in their pants and their legs closed.) We can leave the soft shit to the commercial (including the travel industry) sector.

Remember the space slut incident? I rest my case. (Yeah, I know, she was military - but she was "people person", so my point stands. :P)

Re:Stop trying to humanize NASA.

[Macgruder]

Better yet, skip the jet jockeys and flyboys. Recruit from the submarine service. Steely-eyed, and they have the proven skills to work in inhospitable environments for months on end without cracking up or going psycho.

Re:Stop trying to humanize NASA.

[Grishnakh]

Not necessarily. I don't like being around others much at all, either, except for my wife (and even there I need time alone of course). I'd be perfectly happy with a job working at home, though my current engineering job isn't too bad either since I don't have to talk to others much.

The problem with space travel is that you aren't sending individual astronauts out on missions by themselves; you're sending teams of astronauts. So while that Mars astronaut may be away from most friends and family for 1-2 years, he's going to be in the constant company of a small handful of fellow astronauts, in a tiny capsule of some kind. Personally, I think I'd lose it if I was forced to share cramped quarters with other people for that long. It might be doable if I had to be on the Discovery from 2001, which was a rather sizable ship, and had a nice shuttle bay I could hang out in to be alone, but any near-term mission to Mars is probably going to have a tiny ship for the crew.

I think it takes a special kind of person to be able to share cramped quarters with a handful of other people for months or years at a time; fighter pilots probably aren't it, and extreme introverts aren't it either. Experienced submariners are the only group of people that seem like they'd be a good fit, though I'm not sure how you find and recruit people like that who don't already have a career in the Navy. Besides, it's likely they'd want a mixed-gender crew, and submariners are all male.

Re:Stop trying to humanize NASA.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think you have a misunderstanding of military people, in many ways they seem to be the last people you can expect to "keep their pants on", as it were.

That, and Lisa Nowak was not a "people person" based on statements by her coworkers.

Oh, wonderful, NASA joins the anti-autism crusade

[damburger]

From what I read of the article, this is about enforcing societal norms on employees. And that usually entails firing a lot of autistic people.

First it was the IT industry, and now apparently the space industry is getting in on the act. Tired of watching otherwise competent and productive employees fail to give out and respond to conforming body language, managers decide that we need to bring in some people who make eye contact when they speak and understand the latest fashions. That is far more important than technical expertise, after all.

Most of you probably think its fine, but a societies treatment of 'freaks' and 'wierdos' is a good indication of how it will be treating 'normal' people further down the line.

Re:Oh, wonderful, NASA joins the anti-autism crusa

[Jeng]

Normal is relative.

I think those who make eye contact when they speak, have conforming body language, and understand the latest fashions are freaks.

Problem with what you said though is (afaik) that autistic people have just as much problem dealing with other autistic people as they would with normal people, if not more.

I don't think either straw man would be appropriate for a long term space stay though.

I've said it before.

[DerekLyons]

The US already has a largish pool of individuals already self selected, tested, screened, and proven for many of the traits that NASA seem to want here. A large number of them even have college degrees. (The only drawback being - the pool 100% male.)
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Yeah, you need fighter pilots to do the piloting part on the Shuttle and Orion and any future landing, but to actually operate the gear and the experiments on the Station, on a Moon or Mars base, or cruising to and from Mars: Your best bet is to recruit from the US Submarine Service.

Re:Oh, wonderful, NASA joins the anti-autism crusa

[damburger]

If an autistic person cannot get on with a non-autistic person, why do you assume it is the fault of the autistic person? Perhaps the normal person is just too damn intolerant.

New ways of interacting in space

[kcbanner]

Bow chica chica bow bow chica. I know you were thinking it.

Re:Oh, wonderful, NASA joins the anti-autism crusa

[Rakishi]

Humans evolved society and social behavior for a reason and most can deal with it (to various degrees). If someone is blind you don't make them a sniper, you don't create a touch based vision (that's inferior) just for him.

It's sher arrogance to assume the rest of society needs to bend backwards for you at their detriment simply because you can't do it for them.

Re:Oh, wonderful, NASA joins the anti-autism crusa

[Rakishi]

So everyone except you and your group is wrong and inferior? And you call them prejudiced, short sighted and unwilling to accept those who are different...

People are in control, their's no excuse for prejudice. So then autistic people should have no trouble acting so that others don't have problems with them. Oh wait, everyone is perfect and capable of altering the way their mind works in utter detail except autistic people...