Jul 10, 2026 · 11 min · 9 segments
What does it really take to be a good astronaut? In this episode, Grace is joined by Chartered Psychologist Louise Weston to explore the psychology of space work, from the personality traits linked…
Louise WestonGuestGraceHostWe were saying it would be great to go to space.
But if someone said to you, you know, yeah, you can go and see the Earth.
You can go to the moon.
But would you agree if you were told you're going to be in a confined space with your colleagues for hundreds of days on end? I'm not sure many of us are made of that.
Obviously not you, Louise, because I absolutely cope.
So what is it that makes a good astronaut?
Well, I think you make a really good point about these confined spaces with work colleagues.
If you look back at the history of psychology and astronauts, what makes a good astronaut, a lot of the earlier research looked at the specific personality traits of an astronaut.
It looked at those who were selected by NASA and what were the commonalities in terms of their personality.
And when you looked at that, astronauts tended to be those who were high on seeking new experiences.
need to be a psychologist to work that one out but you know high on achievement motivation achievement orientation you know given given that role not not particularly a surprise high on perseverance which absolutely you know you don't want people giving up easily when they're trying to fix an issue with a broken spaceship and they were also you know kind of astronauts tended to have lower levels of neuroticism so they were generally people who were disproportionately calm and more optimistic had had less self-doubt and Which is all, you know, that's all interesting.
But actually, obviously, as you were just alluding to there, Grace, space missions aren't just about the individual.
Actually, increasingly, as space missions become longer and longer, they're much more about the team.
So what you described there is what's termed an ICE environment, isolated, confined environment.
When you then start thinking about the kind of that the psychological and operational demands of this space, workplace team dynamics become really really critical in terms of the success of the whole space mission
yeah so we've obviously like you said we've had people in space continuously at least someone's been up there for the last 26 years so what do we what have we learned from that from those kind of international space station missions
A researcher called Kansas and colleagues conducted some studies that involved surveying astronauts and cosmonauts during and after missions, really to kind of look at interpersonal relationships and psychological well-being.
And that team found that interpersonal tensions, so misunderstandings, conflicts, they were common and that they could negatively impact on crew morale and performance.
And so some of these, what are sometimes termed softer skills, but effective communication, cultural understanding, conflict resolution skills were really, really important.
And I think as the missions become longer and more complex, like they will for missions to Mars, those psychological factors are going to become more and more important.
We were saying it would be great to go to space.
But if someone said to you, you know, yeah, you can go and see the Earth.
You can go to the moon.
But would you agree if you were told you're going to be in a confined space with your colleagues for hundreds of days on end? I'm not sure many of us are made of that.
Obviously not you, Louise, because I absolutely cope.
So what is it that makes a good astronaut?
Well, I think you make a really good point about these confined spaces with work colleagues.
If you look back at the history of psychology and astronauts, what makes a good astronaut, a lot of the earlier research looked at the specific personality traits of an astronaut.
It looked at those who were selected by NASA and what were the commonalities in terms of their personality.
And when you looked at that, astronauts tended to be those who were high on seeking new experiences.
need to be a psychologist to work that one out but you know high on achievement motivation achievement orientation you know given given that role not not particularly a surprise high on perseverance which absolutely you know you don't want people giving up easily when they're trying to fix an issue with a broken spaceship and they were also you know kind of astronauts tended to have lower levels of neuroticism so they were generally people who were disproportionately calm and more optimistic had had less self-doubt and Which is all, you know, that's all interesting.
But actually, obviously, as you were just alluding to there, Grace, space missions aren't just about the individual.
Actually, increasingly, as space missions become longer and longer, they're much more about the team.
So what you described there is what's termed an ICE environment, isolated, confined environment.
When you then start thinking about the kind of that the psychological and operational demands of this space, workplace team dynamics become really really critical in terms of the success of the whole space mission
yeah so we've obviously like you said we've had people in space continuously at least someone's been up there for the last 26 years so what do we what have we learned from that from those kind of international space station missions
A researcher called Kansas and colleagues conducted some studies that involved surveying astronauts and cosmonauts during and after missions, really to kind of look at interpersonal relationships and psychological well-being.
And that team found that interpersonal tensions, so misunderstandings, conflicts, they were common and that they could negatively impact on crew morale and performance.
And so some of these, what are sometimes termed softer skills, but effective communication, cultural understanding, conflict resolution skills were really, really important.
And I think as the missions become longer and more complex, like they will for missions to Mars, those psychological factors are going to become more and more important.
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