Selecting for Long-Duration Space Exploration: Implications of Personality

Undertaking a trip to Mars will require unparalleled time and effort for astronauts; they will live and work together in space for two to three years in an isolated and confined extreme environment. Intimately crucial to this mission will be the small team sent; long-distance space exploration (LDSE) necessitates compatible individuals in order to have optimal team performance. This paper a) summarizes current astronaut selection procedures and small team selection procedures, b) makes recommendations about the inclusion of personality metrics for both astronaut and crew selection from existing research, and c) suggests further research on team selection and composition via space analogs