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Mental Health Support and Preparation for Space Missions

Name: Mental Health Support and Preparation for Space Missions
Uploaded: 2020-09-04T21:44:05+00:00
Duration: 1 min 22 s
Channel: Royston G King
Description: In this interview excerpt, Speaker A asks about the mental preparation process before a spaceflight departure and how NASA assists astronauts. Speaker B…

4 Sept 2020 · 1 min

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1:22

In this interview excerpt, Speaker A asks about the mental preparation process before a spaceflight departure and how NASA assists astronauts. Speaker B explains that mental preparation is both a personal, lifelong process and a structured support system provided by NASA. Drawing on personal experience as an Air Force member and having a spouse also in active duty, Speaker B describes coping with separation and reintegration, and highlights NASA's dedicated psychological support team, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and family-assist personnel who help astronauts and their families before, during, and after a mission. The conversation emphasizes that seeking professional help is normal and beneficial for managing the unique challenges of spaceflight.

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"What's the mental preparation process like before departure? I believe it's different for every person. How does NASA assist? How do you inherently prepare yourself?" Yeah, so there's—
it is. It's a little bit of self-preparation. There's a little bit of the system is there. I think important things to realize is that, you know, you've been preparing for these moments your whole life. And so I was in the Air Force, I was deployed. My wife is active duty Air Force as well, and so she's deployed. And so we've gone through that, you know, impending separation, and, and we know what it's like to be separated and then also what it's like to reintegrate. And so we had been trained a little bit on that, but I think something worth foot stomping is that NASA realizes that this is a special— I mean, it's a special challenge, and Everybody faces these challenges. So what does NASA provide us? They provide us with a team for psychological support, a psychiatrist and psychologist. They have assistants that help provide support to the family while we're on orbit. And so there are professionals that are trained to do this, to help us think about how we're preparing for this. And we reach out to them and they reach out to us. And so it is not a bad thing to talk to somebody that does that professionally.