Habitability of manned vehicules : the impact of human factors on future long duration human space exploration missions en route to Mars

International audiencePlacing humans in space for a long duration mission beyond Earth's neighborhood implies the design of a highly complexsystem to travel, live and work safely in the hostile environment of deep space. In order to identify all the constraints from both engineering and human sides, a meticulous system engineering approach has to be followed and the human sciences,including incorporation of ideas from artists, ergonomists and psychologists, have to be integrated in the very early stages of the mission design. Given the future human space ight destinations en route to Mars, i.e. deep space-habitats at Earth-MoonLagrange points, lunar bases and asteroids, the main psychosocial and psychological issues are concerning the adverse effects of prolonged co-living and co-working in small groups, under conditions of confinement and isolation. With the aim to studythe impact on habitability of latent and overt stressors, yielded by space ight missions, and to gain a deeper understandingof crew productivity and reliability, in socially risky situations and extreme environments, we conducted a survey involving a large sample size of participants, especially from naturalistic space analogues (Antarctic settings, caves extended exploration, remote sea-based oil drilling platforms, remote military outposts, drone pilots, Mars 520). The participants completed a questionnaire aiming to examine the effects of psychological, interpersonal and environmental factors on individual well-being and team performance. The data collected revealed the criticality of the several space analogues and helped to quantify the general statement which claims that no place on Earth can reproduce the exact extreme space conditions. Theresults suggest that the design of habitats and habitable structures for spaceships, extra-terrestrial planetary surfaces and analogue environments should include as many private crew areas as possible. The implementation of a continuous "in-ight" psychological support from the ground also appears to be a primary need. In addition, job specifications should be more team-work oriented, in order to avoid creating unwanted moments of isolation. Several other countermeasures are proposed for a successful integration of the human factors subsystem in the early mission planning. Finally, the paper suggests tofocus on spin-off for terrestrial applications as further studies: our investigation found a strong synergy with the automation of dependent people with reduced mobility