Spaceflight Risks Related to Human Factors and Behavioral Performance

HFBP groups the risks to human health and performance into four research portfolios.

Portfolio related to behavioral conditions and sleep loss:

• Risk of adverse cognitive or behavioral conditions and psychiatric disorders
• Risk of performance decrements and adverse health outcomes resulting from sleep loss, circadian desynchronization, and work overload

Portfolio related to team dynamics:

• Risk of performance and behavioral health decrements due to inadequate cooperation, coordination, communication, and psychosocial adaptation within a team

Portfolio related to human factors:

• Risk of an incompatible vehicle/habitat design
• Risk of inadequate design of human and automation/robotic integration
• Risk of inadequate human-computer interaction
• Risk of inadequate mission, process, and task design
• Risk of performance errors due to training deficiencies
• Risk of Injury from dynamic loads/occupant protection

Portfolio related to the overlapping risks from space radiation, isolation, and microgravity exposure:

• Risk of adverse cognitive or behavioral conditions and psychiatric disorders
• Risk of acute and late central nervous system effects from radiation exposure
• Risk of impaired control of spacecraft and associated systems; decreased mobility due to vestibular and sensorimotor alterations associated with spaceflight

The HFBP Element identifies knowledge gaps in associated risks and plans research to develop safeguards required to prevent or mitigate adverse outcomes from exposure to the spaceflight environment. Each risk has a path-to-risk reduction that shows the research strategy for reducing the likelihood, consequence, or both, of each identified risk.

Managed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the element relies on collaborations with Ames Research Center, Glenn Research Center, as well as other federal agencies and non-governmental entities. Individual and team investigators interested in working with HFBP specifically and HRP in general can learn more at HRP’s collaboration portal.

Learn more about these and other risks to humans posed by spaceflight at NASA’s Human Research Roadmap.