Results of the ESA study on psychological selection of astronaut candidates for Columbus missions II: Personality assessment

Psychology and the global commons: Perspectives of international psychology.

“…In Europe, one effect of economic unification is a growing need for psychological assessment technologies (for selection, guidance, and placement testing) that will prove culture-fair to applicants from different member countries of the EU. Incidentally, the European Space Agency program (ESA) was among the first to hit upon this problem years ago in the recruitment of astronauts from different European countries (Goeters & Fassbender, 1991). Or, to take another example from a different field: In clinical neuropsychology, the practitioners of tomorrow will need culture-fair tests that can be administered to patients—after, say, traumatic brain injury—who come from another European culture and language area (cf.…”

How Do Astronaut Candidate Profiles Differ From Airline Pilot Profiles?

“…After different national astronaut selection campaigns in Europe, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent out invitations to the first astronaut selection in 1978, for the first Spacelab mission on the US Space Shuttle in 1983. In 1992, the second ESA selection campaign took place (see Fassbender & Goeters, 1992, 1994; Goeters & Fassbender, 1992), already planned for preparing ESA’s Columbus project (and also for the Hermes project, which was canceled later). In 2008, after 16 years, on the occasion of the launch of the Columbus laboratory, ESA announced the third astronaut selection, to be performed in 2008 and 2009.…”