An expert on the psychological effects of space travel, Nick Kanas, MD, associate chief of mental health services at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and UCSF professor of psychiatry, has been presented with the Raymond F. Longacre Award by the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA).
The award was presented on May 21 at the AsMA annual meeting held in Chicago, IL. The Longacre Award was established to honor the memory of Major Raymond F. Longacre, USMC. It is given annually for outstanding accomplishment in the psychological and psychiatric aspects of aerospace medicine.
Kanas' current research is focused on two NASA-funded projects, one examining crew member and ground crew interactions during NASA/MIR missions. The second study also involves crew member and ground crew interactions but is focused on international space station missions. Both projects involve American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, and will assess group tension, cohesion, and leadership.
Although the two studies are similar, the space station study will also examine the effects of a variety of languages and cultural backgrounds. This difference is of particular significance because the space station crew will include Americans, Russians, Japanese, and Canadians, as well as people from several European nations.
"It is particularly gratifying to be recognized by your peers," says Kanas. "Our area of research is quite specialized yet I think our findings are going to prove very valuable to the future of international space travel."
Interested in space travel and science fiction since he was a child, Kanas' first foray into space-related research occurred when he was in his fourth year of medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles. With funding from NASA, he traveled to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to review information pertaining to psychological and psychiatric issues of long-term space missions. While there, Kanas was invited to join an Apollo crew during their weightlessness training and he was hooked.
Since his early beginnings in space travel research, Kanas has spent time as a visiting professor in Russia and also worked on a research project with the European Space Agency in Moscow. In addition, Kanas has published and lectured extensively on the psychological, psychiatric, and interpersonal issues associated with long-term space flight.
The Aerospace Medical Association was founded in 1929 and is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. With 3,500 members from more than 75 countries, the AsMA is the largest, most representative professional organization in the fields of aviation and space medicine.