Whats The Magic Crew Number For Astronauts Headed To Mars? – Forbes

artist's interpretation of the red planet

For the last decade at least, the second man to walk on the Moon - Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Col. Edwin Buzz Aldrin - has frequently been photographed with a Get Your A To Mars t-shirt. Aldrin has long wanted to forgo a return to the Moon and head straight to the red planet instead.Question is, just how many behinds are we talking about on that first trip to the Martian surface?

The number of crew on the first trip to Mars at first seems like something that would automatically be dictated by launch costs, in situ resources utilization (ISRU) and logistics.But theres also a human, psychological factor involved.In interpersonal settings of any sort, the sheer numbers of people at any given event can be crucial to its success or failure.

There isnt a real Goldilocks number for a Mars crew; the general opinion is that you need a group ofat least five people, social psychologist Sheryl L. Bishop, professor emeritus at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, told me. This lower boundary comes from the social psychological research in two areas - even versus uneven groups and groupthink - where the desire to avoid group conflict stifles dissent, she says.

In groups of four or less, Bishop says, the pressure to avoid conflict and disagreements is strongest and dissenting individuals will frequently simply remain silent even on important issues. This could result in critical problems being ignored in their early stage of emergence, she says. But when a group is five or larger, individuals seem to feel empowered to disagree and speak up about their differences of opinion, she notes.

But there are intangibles that can impact the ideal upper limit on crew numbers.These include the quality and nature of the missions leadership; the heterogeneity of the crew, including their personalities, skill sets, professional backgrounds, even their religion, nationality, gender and politics.

The sweet spot has often been the even number of six.But if the crew is in a tight squeeze and needs to vote on life-or-death decisions, thats one of the pros of an odd numbered crew roster.

Even so, the major space agencies appear to have given more emphasis to personality and work culture of potential astronaut crews than to the sheer numbers selected for any given mission.

Two Astronauts in Space Suits Confidently Walking on Mars, Exploration Expedition on the Planet's ... [+] Surface. Red Planet Covered in Rocks, Gas and Smoke. Humans Overcoming Difficulties.

In the early days of space flight, it was simply about getting astronauts into space.But by the time we send astronauts to Mars, there will be more options; one idea is to simply send two separate crews of six each to the same landing area in order to maximize the number of working personnel once on Mars itself.

As NASA points out, the optimal Mars mission length entails a long surface stay with a fast transit time of no more than six months each way, which would easily allow for more than a year on the Martian surface.So, when thinking about such long missions, crew numbers become even more important.

As anyone with social skills intuitively understands group dynamics matter.Think about dinners out with close friends; anything beyond six is a bit much. Conversations tend to break off into twos and threes and theres a lack of group cohesion which can sometimes quickly lead to tension even at a dinner table. Its also why at private house parties, a core group of four or five people are usually ensconced in deep conversation in the kitchen.

The challenge is to avoid a group so large that it becomes difficult for everyone to be heard, interferes with group identification or allows for subgroups to form, says Bishop.You want enough of a crew to provide diversity and redundancy in skills, but not so many that being a part of the group becomes a challenge, she says.

Group cohesion is better in smaller groups than larger groups because the interdependencies amongst group members is greater and creates greater cohesion, said Bishop.

A higher number may be called for to promote redundancy if something goes catastrophically wrong during a Mars mission.

Its presumed that a Mars crew will have extensive opportunities to cohere as a group, says Bishop. The best approach would be to start with a larger candidate group during the selection process with the intent of selecting a minimum of five members and expand with two to four more individuals, she says.

As to how best to choose these final crew members?

Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinsons portrayal of the selection process for the first hundred in his 1999 book, The Martians, comes very close to the process needed, says bishop. The space agencies do utilize team training in various extreme environments for current space crews, but they will need to do so much more extensively and intensively for a Mars crew, she says.

In The Martians, a group of 158 candidate Mars walkers are dropped into a dry Antarctic valley during polar summer and are expected to build a base in which to winter.

This stay in Antarctica was a kind of test, or winnowing, Robinson writes.Some candidates were going to drop out, others would be invalidated out, and others placed on later trips to Mars. They were capable, brilliant, assured, used to success.

Robinsons fictional roster of potential Mars colonists sounds very much like the type of gung-ho overachievers that NASA has always loved.But as bishop points out, the longer any potential crew has to bond before departure, the better.

The more effort that goes into creating a tightly knit, cohesive group that identifies as a group and has practiced working and living together, the larger the group can be, says Bishop. For Mars, this would support groups probably not greater than nine.

But with the advent of the commercial space industry, the old rules may no longer apply.Humans may try for Mars sooner than any of the major space agencies would ever have dreamed.Heres hoping this new breed of commercial crew planners spend enough time figuring out not just who, but how many to send to the red planet.

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Whats The Magic Crew Number For Astronauts Headed To Mars? - Forbes