Cultural differences in crewmembers and mission control personnel during two space station programs.
BACKGROUND
Cultural differences among crewmembers and mission control personnel can affect long-duration space missions. We examine three cultural contrasts: national (American vs. Russian); occupational (crewmembers vs. mission control personnel); and organizational [Mir space station vs. International Space Station (ISS)].


METHODS
The Mir sample included 5 American astronauts, 8 Russian cosmonauts, and 42 American and 16 Russian mission control personnel. The ISS sample included 8 astronauts, 9 cosmonauts, and 108 American and 20 Russian mission control personnel. Subjects responded to mood and group climate questions on a weekly basis. The ISS sample also completed a culture and language questionnaire.


RESULTS
Crewmembers had higher scores on cultural sophistication than mission control personnel, especially American mission control. Cultural sophistication was not related to mood or social climate. Russian subjects reported greater language flexibility than Americans. Crewmembers reported better mood states than mission control, but both were in the healthy range. There were several Russian-American differences in social climate, with the most robust being higher work pressure among Americans. Russian-American social climate differences were also found in analyses of crew only. Analyses showed Mir-ISS differences in social climate among crew but not in the full sample.


CONCLUSIONS
We found evidence for national, occupational, and organizational cultural differences. The findings from the Mir space station were essentially replicated on the ISS. Alterations to the ISS to make it a more user-friendly environment have still not resolved the issue of high levels of work pressure among the American crew.
Boyd
Jennifer E
JE
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco VAMC (116A), 4150 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94121-1545, USA. jennifer.boyd@ucsf.edu
Kanas
Nick A
NA
Salnitskiy
Vyacheslav P
VP
Gushin
Vadim I
VI
Saylor
Stephanie A
SA
Weiss
Daniel S
DS
Marmar
Charles R
CR
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006801:Humans; D012426:Russia; D013026:Space Flight; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce