NASA engineers have to quantify everything. But no matter how many equations they use to calculate launch angles, exposure to space radiation, or create flight paths, there's one thing they can't quantify: the mental health of astronauts, says Siena News. With the advent of space stations, astronauts began spending months away from home.
In 1994, when construction of the International Space Station began, NASA formed a psychology unit. Now NASA astronauts may soon embark on even longer journeys into deep space. Distance communications are hard enough on Earth. A three-year round trip to Mars and a long separation from home could be one of the biggest challenges to a successful mission.
"Space: The Longest Goodbye" is a documentary by filmmaker Ido Mizrahy that traces the journey of mentally preparing astronauts for such an unprecedented journey and chronicles the work of NASA's psychology department. It premiered in theaters on March 8, the film is also running on Apple TV, Amazon and other streaming services.
The film primarily follows astronauts Kayla Barron, a member of NASA's Artemis program that aims to send humans to the moon and then to Mars, and Cuddy Coleman, who spent more than 100 days aboard the space station. The film isn't just about these two astronauts going into space. It's also about the families they leave behind. Perhaps the most poignant narrative is Coleman's. In 2010, she flew into space for the third time, leaving behind her son Jamie when he was in fourth grade. Spotty video chats show Jamie's growing anguish as his mother orbited Earth for several months. Coleman wipes away tears that surface in zero gravity, underscoring her own nostalgia.
But longing for loved ones isn't the only psychological challenge astronauts face. Coleman also describes the near-constant surveillance she was under while aboard the space station, from cameras tracking her every move to regular check-ins with psychological evaluators. The endless surveillance caused her to carefully review what she needed to be and what she needed to avoid, lest she be judged unfit for life in space and then literally "grounded."
The film also deals with a range of external strategies developed in collaboration with NASA's psychology department in preparation for long-term space travel, from the development of a friendly robot designed to stave off loneliness to wilderness simulations designed to study interpersonal conflict in extreme isolation.
There are an astonishing and, frankly, overwhelming number of ideas being tested for the Artemis astronauts. Woven in between long, wide shots of the vast emptiness of space, these vignettes of strategies provide respite for the viewer who begins to experience the loneliness of space.
"Space: The Longest Goodbye" is terrifying and hopeful, wistful and exciting, reflective and compelling of all the givens of being an astronaut. /BGNES
