Antarctica Study: More Contact Increased Crew Conflict — SkimNews
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- Concordia Station hosted the 10-month overwintering study of 12 crew members, selected as one of the strongest real-world analogs for extended Moon or Mars missions because winter temperatures fall to minus 80 °C and contact with the outside world is nearly impossible.
- Jan Schmutz of the University of Zurich and Andrea Cantisani of the University of Bern led the work, combining four rounds of questionnaires with wearable proximity sensors that automatically logged when crew members were physically near each other and for how long.
- Researchers found that crew members with more frequent contact reported greater conflict, more mistrust, and lower perceived team performance—the opposite of the assumption that enforced togetherness builds cohesion.
- Schmutz concluded: "In small teams under extreme conditions, more contact doesn't automatically equate to social support, but can actually increase tensions," while cautioning the study shows correlation, not causation.
- Wearable sensor data showed the crew gradually split into smaller subgroups along language and nationality lines as the mission progressed, a dynamic the authors say may weaken unity in culturally diverse astronaut crews even as it offers individuals a sense of support.
- The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2533420123), with the authors noting the findings may also apply to submarines, offshore oil platforms, and other remote research outposts.
Why it matters: Space agencies planning years-long Mars missions have tended to assume crew cohesion is built by maximizing shared time; this study suggests mission designers may instead need to engineer deliberate privacy and watch for language-based cliques early. The 12-person sample and correlation-only design limit how much can be generalized, but the pairing of subjective reports with continuous sensor data is a methodological first for this setting.
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