C-STARS study<\/a>\u00a0at a virtual media briefing along with three other new experiments that will be conducted on the ISS.<\/p>\nThe C-STARS study is led by Associate Professor\u00a0Jelena\u00a0Brcic at the University of the Fraser Valley along with Co-Investigators Jason Harley at McGill University and Jennifer Stellar at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuture missions to the moon and one day perhaps even Mars will benefit from this important research aimed at better understanding astronauts\u2019 well-being in space,\u201d says St. Catharines Member of Parliament Chris Bittle. \u201cIt\u2019s very exciting to see Brock University contributing to this groundbreaking work.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the\u00a0C-STARS\u00a0team, Robertson and her graduate students will focus on exploring the extent to which astronauts find meaning in their work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they’re up in space, will there be moments where they\u2019ll find their experience to be particularly meaningful?\u201d she says. \u201cWill there be moments, perhaps, where they’re asking: \u2018What am I doing up here?\u00a0Why did I sign up for this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Since work is a big part of most people\u2019s lives,\u00a0Robertson\u00a0says having a sense of purpose and using one\u2019s abilities to meet collective goals \u201cpositively contributes to overall meaningfulness of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robertson is designing questions\u00a0that will measure astronauts\u2019 sense of meaningfulness, both of specific tasks they perform and the overall mission.<\/p>\n
Her questions will be included in pre- and post-mission surveys administered to the crew as well as in-depth interviews the researchers will conduct with the mission members.<\/p>\n
Astronauts will also be asked to keep a diary of their thoughts and feelings at regular intervals throughout their time on the ISS.<\/p>\n
These subjective accounts will be matched to physiological measures of transcendent emotions like awe, gratitude and compassion, says Robertson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe research will help to advance knowledge of why and how people come to experience their work as meaningful when confronted with critical challenges,\u201d she says. \u201cFor astronauts, this involves living in a small, isolated and dangerous environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wider\u00a0C-STARS\u00a0team will examine\u00a0the types of coping strategies used during spaceflight and how these can shape the perception of stress and technical task performance.<\/p>\n
Unlike a workplace on Earth, astronauts don\u2019t get to go home at the end of the day and can\u2019t step out for a break to clear their head.<\/p>\n
This could make achieving a work-life balance quite difficult, says Robertson. Added to that is the pressure of job performance, where a mistake could literally mean life or death for the crew.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0C-STARS\u00a0team will explore how these and other daily stressors affect those working on the ISS.<\/p>\n
Parallel to the pre- and post-mission surveys and in-depth interviews, other researchers on the team will be collecting blood, saliva and other samples to measure the body\u2019s nervous system responses to stress.<\/p>\n
Robertson says the team\u2019s findings will shed light on working conditions in particular occupations on Earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we work in our nice offices, we usually don\u2019t have to think too much about safety or isolation on a day-to-day basis, but there are people doing jobs similar to the extreme conditions of space,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
That includes those who work on oil rigs, Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations and in other remote locations far from family and friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spaceflight might seem like an out-of-this-world adventure, but it\u2019s all in a day\u2019s work for astronauts, according to Brock University researcher Kirsten Robertson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":105583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,7484,3319,1,5],"tags":[14909,14907,8480,14911,14712,594,8561,14710,14910,14912,13338,29,3306,3218,14908],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105581"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105585,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105581\/revisions\/105585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}