E317 - Monthly Moon Missions Missing Mishap Management

Audio (e317)

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[00:00:00] Nick Roome: Greetings and salutations earthlings. You are listening to another episode of Human Factors Cast. This is episode 317. We're recording the episode live across the internet on March 19th, 26. I'm your host, Nick Roman. I'm joined today by Mr. Barry Cur.

[00:00:18] Barry Kirby: Hey there, Nick. It's great to be here again.

[00:00:20] Nick Roome: Also coincidentally.

[00:00:22] Nick Roome: An Earthling, uh, we got for you tonight. Instead of the theme of AI or any AI related things, we will be picking up right from where we left off last time and be talking about space this week. But first we've got some programming notes. Barry, what's the latest over at 1202?

[00:00:42] Barry Kirby: In a bit of a running theme, the 1202 is we still have February's episode up, and that's the latest one out there with the, with Martin 30.

[00:00:50] Barry Kirby: Uh, the current president of the CIHF and long-term friend of the show March is running slightly behind. Um, but it is hopefully getting recorded this weekend because what we are wanting to look at is [00:01:00] balancing remote learning of human factors with everything else that goes on and how does that fit with everyday life.

[00:01:07] Barry Kirby: So hopefully if we get that done then that'd be great. And then that sets us nicely up for what's gonna be going on in April, which is where we'll be at Ergonomics and Human factors 26. And so hopefully we're gonna come out with out from there with a bunch of interviews and all the gossip of the tea about what's going on, being going on at conference.

[00:01:24] Barry Kirby: And just to highlight that, if you do use the 1202 Human Factors website that you need to be using 1202 pod.com.

[00:01:31] Nick Roome: I, I love conference tea. I'm so, but, and, and I'm sorry folk. I'm on a good one tonight. You're gonna get some zesty, one-liners and zingers about the stories tonight. I'm. I'm good. Are you good?

[00:01:44] Nick Roome: Do you wanna get into the stories? I want to get into the stories.

[00:01:49] Barry Kirby: I can't wait.

[00:01:49] Nick Roome: I'm

[00:01:49] Barry Kirby: looking for

[00:01:50] Nick Roome: the ride. Yes. You want for the cue, Barry, so I can play this.

[00:01:53] Nick Roome: I don't know if Unhinged Nick is our host or a worst host, But hey, this is the part of the show all about human factors [00:02:00] news, Barry, for the stories this week.

[00:02:04] Barry Kirby: Well, Nick, as you mentioned earlier, we are going back to space and in particularly, we're going back to the moon, but not to talk about rockets or propulsion or even the technology.

[00:02:12] Barry Kirby: We talk about people because one of the biggest mistakes we still make in complex systems is assuming that if the engineering works, the system works. And in human factors, we know that that's just not true. Systems don't succeed or fail in isolation. They succeed or fail based on how well they support humans the humans inside them.

[00:02:31] Barry Kirby: And then these two stories really do expose that tension. On one side, we've got growing ambition talk of making lunar, uh, missions routine almost industrialized. On the other, we've got a very uncomfortable re reality check what happens when something goes wrong and there is no easy way to recover. So tonight, this isn't really about space exploration, it's much more about the, a fundamental question.

[00:02:55] Barry Kirby: Are we designing systems that humans can actually live, work, and survive in? Are we [00:03:00] still designing them as if humans are just another component? So let's start with the ambition and our first story. So the idea being discussed is a future where we are landing on the moon every month by 2027. Now, on the face it, that sounds like progress, sounds like maturity.

[00:03:18] Barry Kirby: It sounds like we've moved away from exploration to operations, but from a human factors perspective, alarm bells probably should be ringing a little bit because scaling frequency isn't just a logistical problem, it's a human performance problem. When you move from to that kind of tempo, you're no longer designing for exceptional performance.

[00:03:36] Barry Kirby: You're designing for repeatability under real world conditions. That means fatigue, training variability, procedural drift, maintenance pressures, organizational shortcuts, all the things we know that creep in. When systems become routine, and we've seen this before in aviation, in healthcare, in defense, in oil and gas, as soon as something becomes normal, the system starts to stretch and the [00:04:00] humans inside it start to carry more and more of the burden.

[00:04:03] Barry Kirby: So the real question here isn't, can we land on the moon every month? It's more about what does that do to the humans within the system? And have we actually designed for that reality? Nick is landing on the moon every month, good, bad, or a disaster waiting to happen for you.

[00:04:19] Nick Roome: Okay, you want an unhinged comment?

[00:04:20] Nick Roome: Here's an unhinged comment. This feels very much. Like, we'll figure it out in post, uh, like we did last week on the show, except for the show is the moon and moon. So how do we figure that problem out later? I think, look the monthly landing cadence to me actually has a societal impact that is, I, I don't think is brought up in the article, but this is something that I think about quite often.

[00:04:46] Nick Roome: When we think about space travel and space operations they are exciting and they are something that, you know, is like aspirational. We develop this technology so [00:05:00] that, that technology can for lack of a better term, trickle down to our everyday lives. And so I think what might happen is you might make space less sexy.

[00:05:12] Nick Roome: You're going to normalize it to the point where we don't even care more. We, but on the other hand, we, it could go the opposite way, where we treat it as like critical infrastructure that we need to support is like a part of our everyday lives. I can see it going either way. Um, I tend to see it as being less exciting over time as probably the default.

[00:05:35] Nick Roome: I think if we think about what or not, something like this needs to work the. Cadence must work. If failure with the cadence impacts the schedule there, there's going to be, um, a damaged public perception of space fairing adventures just because of the competence [00:06:00] with that, right? Like it's, it's literally you're trying to run operations to get to the moon every month.

[00:06:06] Nick Roome: Uh, if there's continuous delays, then it's going to be seen as incompetence and it's not gonna be seen as anything from a public perspective. I, some of the article frames this as like a production with the lander, but I, but really I think you kind of hinted at it in the in the intro here. This, this is, this is fundamentally human factors.

[00:06:31] Nick Roome: This ends, this is maintenance communications organization. All that stuff is when it comes to get a moon landing every month it's exciting, but I'm worried. What, what are you thinking?

[00:06:48] Barry Kirby: I mean, for me, this is, it's about appetite for achievement, isn't it? It's the setting out the stall about what is this, what is space flight going to be in the next [00:07:00] five 10?

[00:07:01] Barry Kirby: 20 years going forward, because for the longest time now, I think the, there's been very much less appetite for space flight, space engagement until SpaceX came along, SpaceX came along, set a sort of a new narrative for, uh, for space flight, showed that it was from a commercial perspective more achievable.

[00:07:24] Barry Kirby: They were throwing up rockets like to a dozen. Um, great. Okay. And sort of normalizing it a bit more, but here now we're talking about, um, something that is not just about visiting space. It's not just about going to the ISS, it's about doing bigger things. And ironically, I think we, we feel that the, that the moon isn't a big thing, that it just gone to the moon is like, it's just gone to the moon, but it is actually way further away than what the ISS is.

[00:07:50] Barry Kirby: And it's, it, it is a, a significant thing to do. So it's not just about visiting the moon, but it's about utilizing the moon. I mean, this is what the bigger thing [00:08:00] here is. It's about going to that next phase about having a longer term presence there. Um, I think the point you made was really good around, around that perception piece because when, you know this idea that, that the moon landings might just become.

[00:08:14] Barry Kirby: Dull boring. Because we saw that during the Apollo times that the early Apollo Apollo missions, you know, the world stopped. Everybody wanted to watch what was going on. It was on tv. But if you, then you fast forward to Apollo 13 and there's, we, you see the livestock any, and it's highlighted in the film as well where the astronauts thought they were gonna be on tv.

[00:08:36] Barry Kirby: The ne was watching. No, the, the news networks didn't really care. It wasn't broadcast until Apollo 13 became a problem, and then it became newsworthy again. So I think that this is probably what we will achieve here. And is that the achievement is that, um, Apollo, uh, sorry, loon emissions flights to the moon will become as as [00:09:00] routine as catching the bus to town.

[00:09:01] Barry Kirby: So. What I think is interesting here as well is it isn't just about the flight, it is about what it is we're going to do with the moon. And I'll quote from the article that says that the accelerator's flight rate goes hand in hand with preparing the lunar surface for the influx of visitors, which explains the need for monthly emissions to the moon.

[00:09:22] Barry Kirby: So monthly mission, we're talking about 12 missions a year, which 'cause I think monthly missions sounds like it's a lot and it is quite a a fast tempo. I can't, I can barely get, um, podcasts out in that, uh, in that tempo. Um, whereas, you know, they're talking about doing that, but we are only talking about 12 a year.

[00:09:38] Barry Kirby: So that is repeating the same thing 12 times. But what does that infrastructure on the moon look like? So I think that this is what I find interesting is what do we think that needs to be built on the moon in order to handle whoever is going up there? So therefore that leads you, why are people going up there?

[00:09:54] Barry Kirby: What is it that we anticipate doing? So, yeah, so I think initially that that's [00:10:00] where I'm at. What do you see as being so critical that we need to develop on the moon that we need to have this, have this tempo. Um, what, what, what do you think is gonna be that starting point?

[00:10:10] Nick Roome: Uh, I, I see a, a backup plan for what happens if you get stranded on the moon as they, but that's our story.

[00:10:18] Nick Roome: Uh, I think a lunar base. Is likely what they're gearing up for. I would, I think that there's a science that can be done if we had a lunar base something that we can conduct in experiments, in and gravity, something that we can attempt er, soil, those types of things. And really having a habitat that is safe for astronauts live in Moon.

[00:10:49] Nick Roome: I think it's the first step and are gearing up for that. That makes sense. I, the thing that strikes me, me about the a year [00:11:00] cadence is that are they you know, obviously this, these are different crews. There might be some crossover across crews, but that to me's going to be these handoffs between things like training and lessons learned that they experience on the, on the mission.

[00:11:20] Nick Roome: And, um, there's going to be a huge

[00:11:24] Nick Roome: I guess need for human factors when it comes to things or that that knowledge transfer happens across crews. And a reasonable timeline. Otherwise, you're going to start encountering some of these systemic issues repeatedly that we know are issues that are not resolved early on. That to me is going to be really important for the success of a fast paced launch cadence.

[00:11:51] Nick Roome: I think there's also a, a lot of, I'd imagine that the Moon landing system is likely automated, um, [00:12:00] with some sort of human oversight, but there's going to be some of those things with the automated systems that are in place from earth to the moon. There's, there's going a lot of different procedures that need to be established and, uh, maintained and updated over time.

[00:12:22] Nick Roome: As, as we learn more stuff. There's going to be the between, um, I already mentioned, but not only crew, but mission control. You,

[00:12:31] Barry Kirby: you

[00:12:32] Nick Roome: also have the coordination between various contractors. I think they mentioned SpaceX in this article, but I, I, I'd imagine that there's already some coordination between the, the various space flight companies and contractors, imagine that there's likely going to be more coordination that needs to happen if you're going to increase the tempo like this. Um, I know I find that there's, there's a lot to think about [00:13:00] and I desperately hope that they figured out a lot of this, but my world is saying that they're going to learn a lot here, and I hope it's not at the cost of mm-hmm.

[00:13:15] Nick Roome: But let me back up and ask you, what do you think they're going to build on the move do you see with, with this type of speed?

[00:13:24] Barry Kirby: Well, the, the, I mean, the article does say that you know, they're clearly on about building the moon base. 'cause that's where Isaac man does say, if you're building moon base, you and you're gonna stay, you'll need lots of missions to and from the moon.

[00:13:36] Barry Kirby: So that's a, a not riding comment. So we, if you are staying on the moon base, I think there's loads of issues for people around here because we know that just from the physical perspective, that the issue of gravity on the body is huge or not a lot, depending on which way you look at it. Um, so when you are not, uh, when, when you're in space, right?

[00:13:57] Barry Kirby: As soon as you, um. [00:14:00] Get into orbit, you start to have to do exercising and stuff to make sure you retain bone density. If you are living on some sort, some sort of moon base, then that has long-term effects of the body or we perceive it's going to. So at what point? Because you're gonna have to have, if you are, if you are setting up a moon base, how do you crew it?

[00:14:20] Barry Kirby: Are, are people gonna be up there for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, years, or are you gonna get to the point where you're actually saying, actually people are gonna go up there and they're not coming back Purely because that if they're, if they're up there for any long, certainly long period of time that they, that they're basically inhabiting the moon.

[00:14:39] Barry Kirby: That no matter that, that you just can't do the level of exercise that is required and to operate a day job and the unexpected to come back to earth at the end of it. So there's all that sort of, I think, fundamental question about what does a, um, what does living on the moon mean and look like?

[00:14:56] Barry Kirby: And does that 12 week does that, 12 flights a year [00:15:00] cadence mean that you can have good r uh, rotary of people, that actually you can go there for a month and then you come back, that you don't go back for a period of time. So are you, is it a one month on six month off type of view in order to maintain your, the, the physiology of your body?

[00:15:17] Barry Kirby: Or will people just be happy to turn around and say, you know what, I am, I'm, I'm, I'm off of space and I wanna go to the moon, I wanna go to Mars. You know, that sort of thing. People make some significant life changing decisions that they say that they commit, that they properly commit to this. And then that means that there is a whole, whole lot of responsibility there to make sure that whatever systems are put up there are maintained.

[00:15:42] Barry Kirby: Because it's not like, say the ISS where we turn round and I think it's in the next few years, we're gonna turn around and say, you know what? It's done now. Decommissioning it, let it burn it back into the atmosphere. We are done with that piece as soon. If people are making this long-term commitment to lunar and beyond, we can't just leave them [00:16:00] there.

[00:16:00] Barry Kirby: It's not a, it's not a thing. So that's where I think one piece of, of the sort of the, the, the physiology element is gonna be really interesting about how we deal with that. Another bit is around the systems and equipment that we end up using, because again, we mentioned SpaceX, but um, but there are obviously other companies out there now within the space race proving reusability them rockets are gonna be reused on a regular basis.

[00:16:26] Barry Kirby: That means that there's gonna be testing, there's gonna be maintenance of them things. And in the same way that we insist on good maintenance of vehicles and things, we're gonna have to make sure that there is enough. Testing and maintenance, spares, logistics, et cetera, to match that cadence of, of rocket use.

[00:16:45] Barry Kirby: So at the moment we we're celebrating the fact that, again, SpaceX has reused certain rockets 3, 4, 5 times. If we are putting this, this into the, the mainstream, are we expected to use the same rocket 12 times in a row or are we [00:17:00] using, you know, what, what is that? Um, meantime between failure expectation going to be for that, and, and as we mentioned, as I mentioned, the blurb will, our will, the fact that it becomes regular mean that our act, that actually we'll be able, we'll be more willing to say, oh, that isn't quite right.

[00:17:20] Barry Kirby: Um, we'll just fly it anyway. It'll be fine. Um, we'll catch it on the next run. Um, which we do see when you have more things like this. And I guess the last bit I would throw out is how is if this is basically commercializing and having almost anybody or more people can go up to the moon, what.

[00:17:40] Barry Kirby: Role we will comfort and class pay, uh, play into this. Are you gonna have, um, rockets with first class and standard class operations or business class? And are you gonna expect to go up there and just, um, be a civilian? And as you get in, you'll have somebody read [00:18:00] out or you'll have the card in front of you that tells you what to do in, in case of emergency, see the next story.

[00:18:04] Barry Kirby: Or, um, is it, are you always gonna have professional astronauts doing this? So yeah, I think there's um, there's a lot of issues there that we need to really consider. What do you think about this idea about living on the moon and making them sort of, people having to make that sort of significant decision?

[00:18:24] Barry Kirby: How do you think you would handle that?

[00:18:28] Nick Roome: I think that's, uh, I think that's embed astronauts take just by if we're looking at near astronauts who are, uh, embarking on this, this journey here are, are like aware that something could go wrong and that they would spend the rest of their lives on the moon, moon, uh, however long or short that is.

[00:18:51] Nick Roome: There's the more societal, like deep, what does it mean to be, to E-Rate. From earth to [00:19:00] their planetary body. That is a, a different question than I think we're talking about here in the, in the short term, but it is an important one because there will likely be different reasons that people explore away from earth.

[00:19:19] Nick Roome: Right. Running away from your problem or the thrill of adventure and some seeking or wanting to continue science in another environment. Mm-hmm. Right. There's different reasons there. For a second though, I'd like to talk about what this is for the people here on earth we're from on the people going to the moon, but also there's, there's this whole subsection, sub subclass of people that are gonna be affected by this on earth.

[00:19:49] Nick Roome: And these are the people who are working in mission control, working on the operations, logistics of space, flight from [00:20:00] ground effective, right? What does this monthly mean for are people going to get burned out on sending up a rocket every month with people on it? Is there going to be any drift in the amount of, in the procedures that need to be followed?

[00:20:16] Nick Roome: Right. Is there be anything that's taken from other domains like, how air control and airports handle flights are the, is there going to be something similar for space flight that, you know, once, once we get around the astronauts only problem, what, you know, when we do increase cadence, what if it's once a day at that point?

[00:20:37] Nick Roome: What if you have constant moon landings that just, you know, ferry people to and from the earth, from to the moon? I think that gets into a lot of other problems that are not gonna be present here at this 12 issue, but, or 12 month cadence. But or, but you know, I think there need to be some real human factors issues when [00:21:00] it comes to things like alarm fatigue or decision, um mm-hmm.

[00:21:04] Nick Roome: Decisioning when it comes to these like fairly novel circumstances when, when you're, you're going to the moon once a month. That has traditionally been I'm going to use this term, moon moonshot. Like really you're going to the moon and you have to think about all things. I don't know.

[00:21:24] Nick Roome: The, this is a good segue to the next story is what happens when something does go? Is there a backup plan to get those folks off of the moon or, you know, coming back. So did you wanna finish up any other last note? Like we're ready for the next one?

[00:21:41] Barry Kirby: Well, I think that, well, I think that that point you just made is actually quite a good one because we, when you look at some of these things, we are assuming that, um, on this, this monthly trajectory, so you've got a bunch of people going out, you've got a bunch of people coming back.

[00:21:56] Barry Kirby: We've had some stories fairly recently where people have got [00:22:00] ill on the, on the ISS and then you think about other fairly normal functions of, of, of human beings. Things like pregnancy, things like just generally getting older or, you know, people have things like panic attacks or, um, get claustropho, unexpected claustrophobia or, you know, there's all sorts of things that we sort of take for granted here that, okay, if something significant goes wrong away, you go to, uh, to hospital or you go and get some support or whatever, you're not gonna have the, almost the, the moon is almost gonna be a bit wild west when it comes to that.

[00:22:34] Barry Kirby: So if you turn around and you maybe get, um, ill or something like that, but the next, but you've only just got there so the next, um, shuttle isn't around for another month. What's happening there, especially if it's something that is like pregnancy or something like that, that really relies on, on gravity to make sure that there's no issues and things and things like that.

[00:22:55] Barry Kirby: How there's, we're gonna have to work out how all these sort of things work and, [00:23:00] and what, how do we get people back and, and what do we do with them when, when they get here. Because presumably it's not just the simple case of getting back to work and going, straight to hospital and something, there's going to be procedures in place um, and all of that.

[00:23:15] Barry Kirby: So yeah, I'm really, I'm overall, I'm really quite enthused by this idea that we are going for the bigger picture, that we are looking to set out an appetite for. I regular moon journeys. 'cause that can only take us some, take us onwards, which is been sort of lacking up to this point. So that'd be great.

[00:23:37] Barry Kirby: But I think there is, once that does happen, there is going to be plenty of work for human factors practitioners to be supporting this ambition.

[00:23:46] Nick Roome: Yeah, I, I think, I think that's a great transition to the next story. Let's get into it.

[00:23:52] Barry Kirby: Cool. So yeah. So this second story is about rescuing astronauts.

[00:23:57] Barry Kirby: And so this is where the second story cuts right through that ambition that we've [00:24:00] just been talking about because when you strip it back, there's a pretty stark finding. We don't yet have a really credible way to rescue astronauts if they get into serious trouble on the moon. Now, from a human factors perspective, this is the bit we should always start with, not the success case, but the failure case.

[00:24:19] Barry Kirby: Because systems don't get judged on when things go right. They get judged on how they behave when things go wrong. And in this case, we're talking about an environment where you just can't send, uh, send out quickly. You've got extreme constraints on life support all of the time. And crews may be forced to make high stake decisions with very, very limited options.

[00:24:41] Barry Kirby: So this becomes a question of designing for survival, not just operation. What does autonomy really mean when you're cut off? How do you support decision making when stress, time, pressure and uncertainty are at their peak? And critically, how long can a human actually endure in that system before the [00:25:00] system fails them?

[00:25:01] Barry Kirby: 'cause if rescue isn't viable, then the burden shifts entirely onto the crew and the design, and that leads to an uncomfortable necess. But necessary question, are we building systems that are resilient to failure? Or are we quietly accepting that some failures are just not survivable? Nick, what do you think?

[00:25:20] Nick Roome: Um, the article cite no rescue capability. And I, I think that's a professional way of saying you live there now. Um, now you're in an EVA suit. Like, I think in a lot of ways this headline is sensational. It's, you know, we don't have a plan for what happens if somebody gets stuck on the moon.

[00:25:45] Nick Roome: But, you know, it, it, I think that is important to think about. If rescue is not an option, what is the option? You know, we can't go through and do the marsh where, where, uh, where you have [00:26:00] somebody stuck there back and they, they work on their own to drive. I think when I think about this, I think about applying other domains.

[00:26:13] Nick Roome: So either submarine or offshore drilling where there are these habitats that are occupied for long periods of time. The moon, ultimately when you have that base, needs to have some sort of temporary habitat to support, uh, until you plan is made. Just because you don't have a rescue plan in place doesn't mean that you can't.

[00:26:41] Nick Roome: One when the time I think we're hoping best case scenario here, and that's kind of what you were saying is that we need to design for when the systems go wrong. But if these habitats to help support that, then I think then I think that's in too the, I think what's perhaps your [00:27:00] problem than a singular event where something goes wrong is where you have this becoming, I mentioned this earlier with the cadence, but like a systemic issue that happens over time or becomes harder and harder to fix because it's baked in where, oh no, we've, we've, uh, you know, left system failure.

[00:27:24] Nick Roome: Um, look at them, no problem. Oh, it happened again. Okay, well just come back on the next if we start doing that and making it a practice, that's much harder to fix than, uh, trying to solve it, first time around. Curious though, Barry what do you think is going to go on in people's heads when, uh, what are your initial thoughts?

[00:27:49] Barry Kirby: Well, it, it's interesting, isn't it, because I think this is in the initial phase, this has all gotta be about the attitude of those users, those operators, those people who were initially [00:28:00] there. Because if you are going to go up, I would imagine that the early people, um, who go up are all trained astronauts that have been trained to, uh, to and into their lives.

[00:28:11] Barry Kirby: And they all will fully understand the risks will be in as I've termed it, as adventurer mode. They fully appreciate the fact because they've, they've signed up to the program. They know that things can go wrong. And this has got presidents throughout space flight already that all the astronauts who grow up know that things can go wrong.

[00:28:31] Barry Kirby: Um, and they accept that. I think there's, there's real, um, reason why a lot of early astronauts in particular were all test pilots. There was a certain thing around the, the type of attitude that they have. So if you, but once you transition from that adventure mode, shall we say, to standard mode, so nor let's say normal people, now were transitioning to, um, to the, to, to the [00:29:00] moon and doing more of that sort of stuff.

[00:29:01] Barry Kirby: Does that mean that the, that their risk appetite changes? Because how often, whenever you know, you get a new bit of care, you maybe go and do some, uh, some, you maybe go a, um, a rollercoaster or something like that and you sign the, uh, the disclaimer saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know that Wal what all the risks are.

[00:29:21] Barry Kirby: You sign it off, you don't really read them. Um, but then suddenly you are in the middle of an emergency and you have to do that. You, you, you want to get back and you can't for whatever reason. What happens to your risk appetite? You've already mentioned the film The Martian, this is almost a bit Project Hail Mary where people are going, um, potentially out to something and not necessarily expecting to come back.

[00:29:46] Barry Kirby: How does the attitude change, but it, I guess the other way of looking at it is, is this just the sacrifice that we pay to be an adventuring type of species? Um, when [00:30:00] they, uh, the early Apollo, um, missions were going on, there was apparently a a speech writer who drafted a speech for Nixon that was intended to be read on TV if there was a moon disaster that actually happened.

[00:30:12] Barry Kirby: And, this, the, the, a part of this speech says fate is ordained, that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. You know, these men, these brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edward Aldrin, um, know that there is no hope for their recovery, but they also know that there was hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

[00:30:31] Barry Kirby: And that is very much of that, um, everybody accepting at that point that these, you know, it just happens. You know, that, um, when things go wrong, that's part of the job. It's not a drama. Just get on with it. That adventurous spirit is gonna go away, and we are going to have what we have now, an expectation of survival.

[00:30:52] Barry Kirby: Not an expectation of risk. So we will have to get to, I mean, I'm, I completely agree with what you say. [00:31:00] It's a sensationalist headline. It's almost, it's a sensationalist article because we are still at that early stage where we can't expect to know, we don't even know what we're building on the moon.

[00:31:10] Barry Kirby: We don't know how, why we are going to be on the moon in the medium to long term. So how can we truly have worked out what the risks are, therefore, what are the reactions to those risks? Shorter saying, we know that there's going to, there's going to be somebody who has a medical emergency on the moon.

[00:31:28] Barry Kirby: They're going to, so what can you do on the moon and the therefore, at what point do you have to get home? The correlation with the ISS here. The ISS always has to have a mo a return module. So be it a Soyuz or a Dragon or whatever linked up to the, um, to the ISS in case something happens, then they all par.

[00:31:51] Barry Kirby: That is the emergency vehicle. They all pile in there and away hub they go with I think very short notice. Is there going to be something like that on the moon [00:32:00] where there is a rocket ready to return and it can just load people up and it can go within a, within a matter of minutes, given the way that a lot of this works in terms of trajectories, time, space and all that sort of stuff.

[00:32:15] Barry Kirby: 'cause it's not a a half hour trip to get back to the Earth. I think there's gonna be a lot greater planning involved and there's, we're gonna have to make sure a lot more things can be done on the moon as it is. So how would you set up, or what sort of thing processes do we think from a human perspective we would need to go through to be able to categorize what gets done on the moon and what doesn't?

[00:32:38] Nick Roome: Yeah. I think, I think the default should be do do everything that you can. Not on the moon here, right? It's a tea plan that's don't get stuck on the moon. I think that's not. Great contingency plan, but I, I think also, you know, when, when you think about we really need to prioritize [00:33:00] what is important when we send people I'm not saying that we're not doing that.

[00:33:04] Nick Roome: I'm just saying that when we, when we go to the moon, when we go in the base, we should be mindful about what science or mission we are trying to accomplish. Not just go for, for, uh, which again, I don't think we're doing that, but you know, I've that up to the experts pushing the field in the various domains for what to study next.

[00:33:29] Nick Roome: I think, um, the interesting thing to me is that the the, the psyche of the people that go it, it has to be one that this could happen, right? You brought up the speech and I think

[00:33:47] Nick Roome: The friends who made along the real payload along the way was the unchecked confidence that these astronauts have you know, thinking about going and, and conducting a mission. I, I really just. [00:34:00] Like it has to take a certain kind of person to do it. It's no backup plan for getting somebody home.

[00:34:05] Nick Roome: Mm-hmm. And that is a, I know psych evals happen for astronauts, but that is a very specific type of evaluation that needs to be contained. I don't know. I, this, uh,

[00:34:19] Barry Kirby: It's weird, isn't it? 'cause I think there is, um, I mean, you, you, you raised the point about people going, you know, why people going to the moon and the fact that we would expect that they're doing it for good reasons and therefore get vetted and the pri proper medical workups are not to do the job.

[00:34:34] Barry Kirby: But I guess what we've seen recently with Blue Origin and a few others, this, this space tourism, you know, people with deep enough pockets, certainly at the moment, people with deep enough pockets being able to jump in, um, into one of these things and, and fly to the moon. Because they can, not because they should, but just because they can.

[00:34:54] Barry Kirby: And certainly I think we are gonna see in the short term when this becomes a thing more of that happening. [00:35:00] Um, and so because why, I guess why wouldn't it, given, given society today, um, so when you look at them, them elements, are we then turning around and saying, they, they're held to a different standard or, why are they then go, 'cause again, when you look at infrastructure, you're gonna go to the moon, you're then gonna have infras infrastructure for them to stay.

[00:35:21] Barry Kirby: Does it then end up being its own, um, its own organization, its own economy, all that sort of stuff in order to maintain the space? Tourism? 'cause people have the heavy monies when them tourists then become ill or whatever. They're gonna have to, they'll have a different level of expectation as to what you would if you are, if you are there to work.

[00:35:44] Barry Kirby: So I think the, the way that people, I think the thing that worries me most is the way that people will change their perceptions about what spaced what or lunar travel is. As it becomes more commonplace. Because at the [00:36:00] moment you, somebody turned around to you or I, and said, right Nick Barry, you are gonna be on the, uh, the next SpaceX the next Dragon Flight with SpaceX.

[00:36:08] Barry Kirby: You're gonna go up to the isis. I think we'd both be excited, stroke, terrified stroke, show me the training show me how to do the job properly. Whereas if you then go on a bus, you don't necessarily do that. If you're on a, if you're on a plane now, you'll go and you'll, you'll, I think most people, if you go on the train, if you've gone on a plane for the first time, you very much listen to everything that the, that safety message says once you've been on it five or six times, once you've been on it 10 times, once some people are on it daily, weekly, whatever, it's the same old same mode.

[00:36:41] Barry Kirby: You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Just, yeah. Another card's there. I'll put that away. Once space becomes that, that's probably then when we enter, enter the biggest risk base.

[00:36:51] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Yeah.

[00:36:51] Barry Kirby: And what we need to understand more about is how to deal with that complacency and, and work and deal with, deal with the [00:37:00] issues then.

[00:37:01] Nick Roome: Yeah. I want, you know, there's more relation between these two stories than perhaps we're thinking about. 'cause I'm wondering if the cadence piece piece is a, a part of, you know, is, is there a work, somebody to survive on the moon for a month while they wait for the next ship? Um,

[00:37:19] Barry Kirby: yeah.

[00:37:20] Nick Roome: Is that kind of built into these things?

[00:37:23] Nick Roome: I wonder if they're also kind of ties the progress piece of it rather than general, uh, genuine recoverability. Um, and that feels bad to me, but hopefully it's like, you know, just make progress so that way we can, to have something not quite go right.

[00:37:46] Barry Kirby: Yeah, I think there's gotta be something there around, like you said, having.

[00:37:51] Barry Kirby: With that planning about what does that, what, what does that cadence look like? What is actually gonna be on the moon? You then need to have them pieces on the moon to be able to maybe [00:38:00] manage these longer term issues that you would, you don't need to worry about in other sectors. So on. Um, if you're on an offshore rig, for example, then they do have extensive medical, um, facilities because trying to get home is, so this is gonna be the same, isn't it?

[00:38:13] Barry Kirby: The what you can do on the moon with facilities. So that means you're gonna have to build medical facilities and things like that, dental facilities, et cetera, et cetera, in order to be able to manage it. So yes, I think this is gonna be a case of let's look at risk in a different way. Look at how we can solve, as you said solve issues at wherever it happens, as opposed to relying on just pulling an emer, the world's biggest emergency rip code to get you back to, uh, get you back to earth.

[00:38:39] Nick Roome: There's al, there's always the backup plan. You can as you, you can towards the earth. Best thank, let's wrap up. Let's thank you to our friends over at Futurism and Gizmoto for our news stories. You wanna follow along, we do post the links to in our Discord where you can join us for more discussion on these stories and much more.[00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Nick Roome: We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back to see what's going on in the human community right after this.

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[00:40:03] Nick Roome: Yes, huge. Thank you as always. To our patrons, our friends, our patrons truly keep, uh, everything over here so smoothly. You support us, you support the show. Barry's laughing because what's next? Uh, I think, think we just don't bury the lead here. Who, uh, thank you to our friends over at the Human Society Technical Group.

[00:40:23] Nick Roome: For aerospace let's get into this weekend. Aerospace.

[00:40:27] Elena Zheng: Thanks Nick and Barry. This is Elena and Phil from the Aerospace System Technical Group at HIVS. Last time during our discussion on pilot peer support program, we mentioned that pilots are trained to put their emotions in a box before stepping onto the aircraft. And we wanted to dig deeper on the emotional aspect of piloting.

[00:40:46] Elena Zheng: So this week we invited Alejandra Ruth Ra, who is the first author of a recent systematic literature review on the road of emotions during flight simulations. Her work was published in the International [00:41:00] Journal of Aerospace Psychology. Hi Alejandra, thanks for joining us.

[00:41:04] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me.

[00:41:06] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: My name is Alejandra Ra. I hold a PhD in educational psychology from McGill University University. And the topic of my dissertation was around the role of emotions and an effect in pilot training, especially with, uh, simulations.

[00:41:22] Elena Zheng: Yeah, so aviation human factors. Whenever we assess a new technology, we tend to focus a lot of our measures on performance and workload.

[00:41:31] Elena Zheng: This is to ensure that the technology is accurate and easy to use for pilots, but your work focused on emotions. What led you to that topic?

[00:41:39] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Well, exactly this intense connection between workload or cognitive load and performance. Like in my previous uh, research, it was more with medical training and then I came with high stakes professions of the decision making that these professions make ha can have an impact on lives of others.

[00:41:56] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: So in this case I was like, what about the emotions? Like [00:42:00] emotions are also a reaction and can play a role in the decision making and in the performance of these type of professions. When I started reading more in pilot training, I realized like it's all about workload situational awareness, like more cognitive processing rather than emotions per se.

[00:42:15] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: So that's why I wanted to dig in more of like, what about this effective side that is reactive can have a role in performance? And that's how I started to bring into my question of like, what's the relation between effect and performance in flight training simulations.

[00:42:33] Phil Doyon: So before we dive into your report, uh, it would be important to give a common understanding to our listeners about the terms that you're using.

[00:42:40] Phil Doyon: Effects, emotions, mood, because they're not synonyms, right.

[00:42:46] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: No, no, no, they're not. So, yes, this a good question. So affect is a umbrella term. That's how we call it, like encompass all the emotions, stress and mood. Uh, and it's, the affect [00:43:00] is a reaction we have. Like, what's good for me or bad for me, it's like a good evaluation.

[00:43:04] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: And then we can see it reflected in mood, stress, or emotions. Mood is the, we call it the emotional weather, like the effective weather, sorry, like more in general, how are we feeling? Like you can say, I'm feeling down, I'm feeling okay, but it's very general and it can last for a few days. And it's not specific to a situation.

[00:43:22] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: It can be positive or negative, but it's like not specific. Then for stress, it's always feeling, it always feels as negative because it's a challenging situation and it's always arousing. Uh, but again, it lasts for, for a few hours. Again, like it's, it is not specific. Like there's not one specific trigger for stress to happen.

[00:43:41] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: It's like more situational. And lastly, we have emotions that are, these are the ones that are extremely specific. They react for something specific that happened and they can be positive or negative again, in the sense of feeling good or feeling bad. And they can be arousing or deactivating, uh, in the physiological component.[00:44:00]

[00:44:00] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: So you have those, uh, like you have four quadrants in the case of emotions and for pilot training, uh, or. Aviation, I would say like focus more on stress and emotions, because pilots usually fly a maximum of 14 to 16 hours. So the mood might change a lot in that sense. Like we have less control to understand what's the role of that effective component in their performance.

[00:44:24] Elena Zheng: All right. Can you tell us a bit more on the nostalgic side of how you conducted your systematic review?

[00:44:30] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Sure. So I chose, uh, like based on my research question, I chose three main concepts, and then I found a bunch of keywords and synonyms for them, which are pilots in different ways, effect and simulations, because I wanted to understand like using.

[00:44:48] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Simulation as a, as a technology in training. So I merged all of those. Based on that, I chose three databases, including Eric Sec info and I got [00:45:00] 431 articles. I filtered them with Ryan and I ended up with 29 that met my inclusion criteria. So that's how I got it. Then after reading the articles and analy analyzing the content, I created five teams of how, how this kind explain the relationship between affect and performance.

[00:45:20] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: So for example, one of them was like, not the relationship per se, but it's like both of them are continuous processes. Uh, so that's why they're so related. Another one is like the relation between negative activating, uh, emotions and stress on performance and, uh, the reaction to surprising or sterile events.

[00:45:40] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: So yeah, the other two are social dynamics and the interventions to manage effective responses.

[00:45:47] Elena Zheng: Yeah. So you mentioned that emotions can be positive or negative earlier. So did you take a look at the effect of those specific emotions on flight performance?

[00:45:55] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Yes. So again, just to be specific, it refers to like if [00:46:00] it feels decent or unpleasant.

[00:46:02] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: And one thing that is interesting is that in case of aviation, most of them focus most of the, so we focus on negative emotions such as, uh, or affect like stress and anxiety and examples. Stress and anxiety have an inverted you relationship with performance, like too low or too high can be bad in the sense that an ideal level of anxiety, an ideal level of stress could be good for performance.

[00:46:26] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: But like, if it's goes to the extremes, either you're bored and is engaged from the task, so that might lower your performance or you're too overwhelmed to perform accurately. Uh, and then one interesting one that was about positive emotion was joy. This was in the case of a social situation because you were, it was a pilot with a copilot and in the case, joy expressed in laughter was not so good for performance because the person was focusing more on the other, like interacting with the other person and having that social connection rather than the task on hand.

[00:46:59] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: [00:47:00] So in that case, like this specific situation like joy was not so good. But other than that, there's not a lot on positive emotions.

[00:47:08] Phil Doyon: I mean, it really breaks my heart that laughing in the cockpit will lead you to a, you know, worse performance. You know, I will, I love having positive pilots, uh, with me on the flight deck.

[00:47:18] Phil Doyon: But then, uh, I mean, you, so in your work you show that emotions really play a role in the pilot performance, in the flight simulator. Uh, whether it's the effect of stress or the ability to focus on the task at hand. So would it make sense to go back to the initial training that pilots go through, that they're being told to put their emotions into a box before going the aircraft?

[00:47:41] Phil Doyon: Or are there techniques for pilots to better control their emotions?

[00:47:46] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Yeah, so great point. Against the putting in the emotions in a box. And this is not only for aviation, it's for any high stakes profession. Like I find it's common that like no control yourself and put their emotions on side. [00:48:00] For me, I see emotions as an instinctive reaction and, uh, they have a function like they're, they're appearing for a reason.

[00:48:06] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: They're trying to say something. So yeah, I don't think it's a good idea. On the opposite, I think it's better to use that during the training process and seeing how, how they feel, how, when they're triggered. So by the time they, they arrive to the aircraft, they know themselves more and they know they have techniques to manage.

[00:48:26] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: An example, one technique for managing their emotions. Could come from the instructor, you know, like saying this is a safe environment. You can express as much as you want here, no one's gonna judge you, is for you to use this in your favor. And then providing techniques of how this instructor has done it in the past, how they could do it better.

[00:48:46] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: Another technique is, uh, call reappraisal is very simple. It's just like taking this situation cognitively and how can I evaluate it differently? So for example, if I'm if I failed this training session, instead of saying [00:49:00] like, okay, move on, which is like just suppressing and saying, what can I learn from this for next time?

[00:49:05] Alejandra Ruiz-Segura: And so recognizing that there's something there that could be useful in the future. And yeah, again, like, I'm stiff on that, on like getting familiar with emotions and knowing how they work on us and how they could play a role in performance so that they're not like this far concept from error. Like how can we use it in our favor?

[00:49:26] Elena Zheng: Yeah. So it sounds like instead of putting it in a box, it's like recognizing it and finding the right technique to cope with them and to use them. Thank you so much for that explanation. Thank you so much Alejandro, for joining us today. Uh, it's been wonderful talking about your research. We look forward to seeing that development in the future.

[00:49:44] Elena Zheng: And that's all we have for today. Take care.

[00:49:47] Nick Roome: Oh, so nice hearing from experts who actually know their stuff about pilot Psyche. Uh, it's almost like we planned that to be, I mean, we did plan that to be a part of this [00:50:00] episode.

[00:50:00] Barry Kirby: Oh we totally planned it. I mean, you can see it. I would all just tie together and was completely inspired and, and thematically hung to, uh, together, like, yeah, it was amazing.

[00:50:09] Barry Kirby: Perfect. We, we, so good.

[00:50:10] Nick Roome: Perfect. Thanks Phil. Thanks Elena. And thank you Alejandra for your for your this weekend aerospace. We really appreciate, uh, that segment. It's one of my things that y'all do here. Uh, I I have no good segue. One more thing. What do you got?

[00:50:26] Barry Kirby: This week I, in fact, today I've been to see Project Hail Mary, which anybody who's been listening to this podcast for a while will know that we've been looking forward to this, or nervous about going to see it for a while.

[00:50:36] Barry Kirby: So it's perhaps my most anticipated film ever. So if you wanna hear more about what we do, you either meet us in the post show or we'll do some do some more bit down the line once Nick has been to see it. However, really what my one more thing is around CAD design and review tools because.

[00:50:52] Barry Kirby: Anthropometrics is something I've done some of, but not loads of. And when I've been playing [00:51:00] with when I've been playing with some of this stuff, it's quite expensive, especially when you start, start getting into the VR world. 'cause obviously using things in, in VR makes certain elements of anthropometric, uh, design, development and testing so much easier.

[00:51:13] Barry Kirby: But when I replay with it, I would say five, six years ago, it's expensive. You have to have specific suites set up or not. You know, it only the larger companies a avail available to do it. I've been more looking into recently the ability to develop some of that CAD type VR capability over the past couple of weeks.

[00:51:32] Barry Kirby: And actually it's impressive what you can get now at such low cost. So using things like, um, meta, uh, meta quest, um, headsets using, um, things that are, are much cheaper than the tens of thousands of pounds that they used to be, you can actually get some fairly easy to develop for either cheap or free CAD and be visualizing it and interacting with it.

[00:51:56] Barry Kirby: Um. A fairly simple [00:52:00] setup and be able to do that sort of assessment. So I'm really quite impressed about just how it's the one bit around the VR world and maybe the XR world I'm now actually really buying into is the fact that you can do this sort of analysis cheaper and easier, therefore becoming more effective than you ever could do.

[00:52:18] Barry Kirby: Yeah. Uh, big thumbs up for VR and cad

[00:52:21] Nick Roome: and we're, we're still waiting on that, that, uh, what Apple vision.

[00:52:25] Barry Kirby: That's true. That's why I didn't, I didn't mention to them. 'cause they keep on ghost to us.

[00:52:29] Nick Roome: Right.

[00:52:29] Barry Kirby: Nick, what about you? What's your, uh, one more thing?

[00:52:31] Nick Roome: Oh, you mentioned Project Hail Mary. I've read it now.

[00:52:34] Nick Roome: I've read the book and post show. So you can meet us there. Um, my, my real this week, uh, since we're doing Afin reel one is, um, I've, are you familiar with the tool Figma?

[00:52:50] Barry Kirby: Oh yeah.

[00:52:50] Nick Roome: Okay. I've been knee deep in Figma. It's, it's a great tool. It's a great tool. The thing that I've been doing, building components, [00:53:00] reusable components, and, and I stole that this is what human factors trained people should be doing with their time.

[00:53:09] Nick Roome: It's, it's out of necessity that I'm doing it. Um, but what I'm finding is that it gives me a better appreciation. For what designers do. When I'm building these components, like human factoring that happens at the micro level, oh, does this need a drop shadow, an outline? You know, what is gonna be more visually salient against the background here?

[00:53:31] Nick Roome: So I'm doing those like micro human factors levels versus like a systems level, which is what I'm typically better doing. And it's, it's been a good reminder to myself that understanding the opponents that make up a system is often just as important as the system as a whole. It's like, it is a nice like little myself, not that that I forgot it, but just that oh yeah, this every level and that [00:54:00] you know, overthinking to the max is, is a real thing when it comes to, so that was my one more thing.

[00:54:06] Nick Roome: And uh, and that's it for today. Everyone. If you like the episode, enjoy something. The dis come out space. Go listen to last, last week's episode. Why not wherever. Listen with what you think of the stories this week. For more in-depth discussion, you can join us on our Discord community. As I mentioned we post all of our latest news there.

[00:54:24] Nick Roome: Can visit our official website, sign up for our newsletter, stay up to date with all the latest semen factors. News. You like what you hear, you wanna support the show. You can be a super cool elite Patreon, like some of our in Patreon. Uh, there's a couple things else you can do. I'm switching this up a little bit.

[00:54:40] Nick Roome: I don't know why. Uh, leave us a five star review. If, just do it, it helps, uh, you can tell your friends about us. That also helps. And then recording us on Patreon, if you wanna give us your money to help us. Cool things. As always, link to all of our socials and our website are in the description of this episode.

[00:54:59] Nick Roome: We [00:55:00] thank you for being on the show today. Where can our listeners go and find you if they wanna talk about your trip to the moon?

[00:55:06] Barry Kirby: My upcoming trip trip to the moon, I'll have to tell you about how I, how I ma my, made my children cry about that. Um, but you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook Instagram, if you want to see where I'm going with my pottery journey at the moment.

[00:55:18] Barry Kirby: But fundamentally, from a more human factors perspectives, if you wanna hear news and interviews with human factors, professionals, and those people who are associated, find me on 1202 the Human Factors Podcast, which is oh two Pod com.

[00:55:31] Nick Roome: As for me, I've been your host, Nick Rome. You can find me on our discord and across social media at Nick Rome.

[00:55:37] Nick Roome: Thanks again for tuning into Factors Cast. If you're watching listening, stay tuned for the post time post until next time.

[00:55:43] Barry Kirby: It depends.