Enhancing Space Exploration by Adding Astrosociology to the STEM Model

[Abstract]. The STEM acronym emphasizes the renewed desire by space professionals (including NASA) and others involved in education to focus more strongly on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Based on the precipitous decline in the number of students choosing these areas for their future careers, this emphasis seems reasonable. NASA, as the example utilized in this paper, faces a dearth of qualified people in the workforce to replace their aging employee base (as do aerospace corporations). One major problem exists with this effort, however. While it seems as though this approach attempts to improve the composition of the workforce to one favorable to NASA’s future hiring practices, it only partially accomplishes this objective. If the future includes a trend in which a growing number of people go into space to work and even live their lives, then STEM suffers from a missing component. The social sciences (which include the behavioral sciences and humanities for the purpose of brevity) will become increasingly important for reasons discussed in this article. Astrosociology consists mainly of social scientists interested in conducting outer space research. It concentrates on psychological, social, and cultural patterns related to space. Astrosociology adds a missing perspective to the space community that can no longer advance without integrating its core concepts, principles, and empirical findings to its future planning. For the space community, the emphasis designated by STEM requires change to STEMA to reflect the addition of astrosociology. This article makes the general case for bringing the social sciences into the space age, and into the space community, in a formal and permanent manner for the benefit of society and space exploration.