On Orbit and Beyond : Springer : 9783642437397 : 3642437397 : 29 Jan 2015 : As we stand poised on the verge of a new era of spaceflight, we must rethink every element, including the human dimension. This book explores some of the contributions of psychology to yesterday's great space race, today's orbiter and International Space Station missions, and tomorrow's journeys beyond Earth's orbit. Early missions into space were typically brief, and crews were small, often drawn from a single nation. As international cooperation in space exploration has increased over the decades, the challenges of communicating across cultural boundaries and dealing with interpersonal conflicts have become all the more important, requiring different coping skills and sensibilities than ?the right stuff? expected of early astronauts. As astronauts travel to asteroids or establish a permanent colony on the Moon, with the eventual goal of reaching Mars, the duration of expeditions will increase markedly, as wil