1 GAME-BASED EVALUATION OF PERSONALIZED SUPPORT FOR ASTRONAUTS IN LONG DURATION MISSIONS

Long duration missions set high requirements for personalized astronaut support that takes into account the social, cognitive and affective state of the astronaut. To cope with the high demand situations astronauts benefit from personalized support. Such support should be tested in different stages of development and as thoroughly as possible before testing and deployment into space. The in-space influences of the astronaut’s state factors are hard and expensive to simulate on earth. But testing personalized support for astronauts in the right context (e.g. space) is important. We investigated if evaluation of prototype systems in a game-based environment (where the space environment can be simulated) contributes to producing a more elaborate, in-depth and realistic user experience. The outcomes of this research are important to everyone who wants to develop a support system for people in high demand situations (e.g. astronauts in space.) 1