Astrobiology and society: building an interdisciplinary research community.

This paper reports recent efforts to gather experts from the humanities and social sciences along with astrobiologists to consider the cultural, societal, and psychological implications of astrobiology research and exploration. We began by convening a workshop to draft a research roadmap on astrobiology's societal implications and later formed a Focus Group on Astrobiology and Society under the auspices of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI). Just as the Astrobiology Science Roadmap and various astrobiology science focus groups have helped researchers orient and understand their work across disciplinary contexts, our intent was to apply the same approach to examine areas beyond the physical and life sciences and expand interdisciplinary interaction and scholarly understanding.

Fear, pandemonium, equanimity and delight: human responses to extra-terrestrial life.

How will people respond to the discovery of extra-terrestrial life? Potentially useful resources for addressing this question include historical prototypes, disaster studies and survey research. Reactions will depend on the interplay of the characteristics of the newly found life, the unfolding of the discovery, the context and content of the message and human information processing as shaped by biology, culture and psychology. Pre-existing images of extra-terrestrials as god-like, demonic, or artificial will influence first impressions that may prove highly resistant to change.

Behavioral health: integrating research and application in support of exploration missions.

"Safe Passage: Astronaut Care for Exploration Missions," (Ball JR, Evans CH, eds. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 2001) draws attention to behavioral health, an overarching topic that subsumes psychological, interpersonal, and cultural adaptation in space. On December 2-3, 2003, the University of California, Davis, was the site of a NASA-funded workshop entitled "New Directions in Behavioral Health: Integrating Research and Application.