Faces in space

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In this Science Update, students explore a proposed system to spot signs of burnout on marathon space flights. David Dinges, head of the Experimental Psychiatry Unit at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine says that NASA is concerned that stress on long missions could affect the astronauts’ performance. So he and his colleagues are developing a computer system that scans for subtle signs of stress in a person’s face. The goal of this program is to spot stressed-out astronauts so they can be treated before they make critical errors. Science NetLinks provides a link to the audio file, a written transcript, and questions to engage students in discussion about detecting and alleviating stress on long-term space missions and other challenges involved with long-term space missions. This activity also contains links to more research on this topic from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, and a National Geographic article.