Spaceflight human factors: Enter the cosmos

The next challenge for human factors is space exploration. Long-duration exploration missions (LDEM), particularly those that reach beyond low Earth orbit, offer more extreme environments that will test human factors engineers and behavioral and medical researchers in new ways. There are some similarities with spaceflight and aviation. The extreme environment of space provides opportunity for a new wave of human factors and applied psychological research, which may inform research and operations in other fields such as aviation. Spaceflight, in turn, owes much of its foundation to pioneers in aviation.