We can never be sure how much Lisa Nowak鈥檚 job or her space flight aboard the shuttle Discovery last July affected her state of mind. But her arrest for attempted murder last week has raised questions over the stress astronauts must cope with and the processes in place to deal with problems when they occur.
It is no secret that astronauts perform under great stress in space. What is not so well known, or so well understood, is the pressure they experience while on Earth. 鈥淭here are tremendous stresses both before and after each mission,鈥� says Dave Musson, a psychologist who studies high-performance individuals, including astronauts, at McMaster University in Hamilton, in the Canadian province of Ontario.
Astronauts鈥� celebrity status puts them under considerable pressure, he says: 鈥淭hey are constantly under the spotlight of public scrutiny.鈥� This comes on top of the stress of their day-to-day jobs, in which they are under continual assessment for the shrinking number of spaces aboard future flights.
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In 2003, the NASA inspector general criticised the agency for hiring too many astronauts. The shuttle flew only three times in 2006 and has only seven seats available on each flight, yet NASA has more than 125 astronauts on its books. To make matters worse, the shuttle is due to be retired in 2010, and it is not yet certain when its successor will be ready to fly. 鈥淪eats are hard to come by,鈥� says Musson. Nowak waited 10 years for her first and so far only flight. Given the shortage of spaces, she was unlikely to fly again even before her arrest. Her marriage is also reported to have recently broken down.
Rumours of personal difficulties among astronauts abound, but most incidents result in the astronaut leaving the corps and are not publicised. NASA rarely comments on such problems, though Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, is known to have battled with depression and alcoholism after he left the agency.
While psychological problems will be found in any group of people, there is a suspicion that NASA鈥檚 way of assessing astronauts may exacerbate them. At the very least, the selection process discourages astronauts from discussing personal difficulties, says Musson. Psychologists tend to believe that the best predictor of a person鈥檚 future conduct is their past conduct, which means that admitting weakness could end an astronaut鈥檚 career. 鈥淚t seems unfair, but that鈥檚 the reality of selection,鈥� says Musson.
