Psychological and sociological effects of spaceflight

Psychological and sociological effects of space flight are important to understanding how to successfully achieve the goals of long-duration expeditionary missions. Although robotic spacecraft have landed on Mars, plans have also been discussed for a human expedition, perhaps in the 2030s, or as early as 2021 for a return mission, or even in 2018 for a 501-day flyby mission for a crew of two with no landing on Mars.

A Mars return expedition may last two to three years and may involve a crew of four to seven people, although shorter flyby missions of approximately one and half years with only two people have been proposed, as well as one-way missions that include landing on Mars with no return trip planned. Although there are a number of technological and physiological issues involved with such a mission that remain to be worked out, there are also a number of behavioral issues affecting the crew that are being addressed before launching such missions. In preparing for such an expedition, important psychological, interpersonal and psychiatric issues occurring in human spaceflight missions are under study by national space agencies and others.

In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to human spaceflight, including a human mission to Mars.

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