Panel Presentation: Human Factors Technologies for Space Exploration

Abstract

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is supporting the next phase of space exploration with new spacecraft, launch vehicles, and ground control facilities. Because of the enormous engineering advances in the three decades since the Space Shuttle was developed, NASA will be able to infuse many advanced technologies into these systems that were not available when the current space transportation system was developed. However, technology infusion comes with many human factors challenges. For example, crew vehicle interactions will become more complex and interactive with potentially variable levels of human-machine function allocation (levels of automation). Crew training techniques will need to take variable automation into account. Advanced extra-vehicular activities may involve communication not only among physically isolated crew-members (perhaps on an orbiting spacecraft and on the lunar surface), but also between humans and remotely situated robots. Human systems integration techniques will use engineering advances and knowledge to ensure that the complex developments associated with this next phase of space exploration are safe and efficient.