Remote Working and Space Mutiny

On 16th November 1973 the fourth and final Skylab mission blasted off. Three rookie astronauts would go on to complete 6051 hours of “work” and break the space endurance record. It was a massively successful mission meeting all its objectives but not without a small bump in their orbital road.

Now, it would likely be wrong to draw a direct line between working in a metal tube in space and working from home in a pandemic but, hey, there are enough hot takes out there, why not one more?

You see, there are similarities - honest. When the astronauts first arrived in Skylab they had a very busy schedule. There was, admittedly, much to do and they got very few breaks, even on occasion working through meals. This intense way of working carried on for six weeks. The frequency of the astronauts grumbling increased until one day, they decided to take an unannounced day off. Now, there is still some debate as to whether or not this constituted a mutiny. Time has softened the view of the astronauts and the fact that they never flew in space again was as much circumstantial as it might have a punishment.

The astronauts felt they were over-scheduled. When communicating with Mission Control, the Commander of the mission, Gerald Carr, said:

“On the ground, I don't think we would be expected to work a 16-hour day for 85 days, and so I really don't see why we should even try to do it up here.”

Obviously, having spent a lot of money to make the space laboratory and to send people to live in it, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable for NASA to try and get their money’s worth. Except that, eventually, it tired the astronauts out. So they took a break and spent a day staring out of the window. They returned to their work with some demands.

Carr communicated his team’s demands:

"We need more time to rest. We need a schedule that is not so packed. We don’t want to exercise after a meal. We need to get things under control.”

Mission control relented, the schedule was relaxed and the astronauts enjoyed the rest of the mission completing all that was asked of them.

And so we come to today. Do the words of Commander Carr resonate with you in any way? There is increasing evidence that, alongside an increase in productivity, some people are starting to show signs of burnout associated with remote working.

The incident aboard Skylab informed NASA policy from then on. The work schedules of astronauts now include down time. Astronauts on the ISS work an 8 hour day with plenty of time to call home and 2 hours of exercise. Over six months into our new remote working world, this is the challenge that now faces us. It isn’t as much a challenge of policy as it is personal behaviour. Companies are not mandating that we work more, schedule ever busier days and burn ourselves out. Mostly, it is the opposite. But yet, here we are. And again, the fact that we are working remote now is just that, a fact. That can’t change right now. There is no capsule to splashdown back into the office quite yet.

Is it right to equate the psychology of astronaut in a confined space with those of us remote working in partial lockdown during a long dark winter? It may be a stretch but there are likely things that we can learn from it. The Dartmouth Path Programme was designed by Jay Buckley, an ex-NASA astronaut, as a way of learning how to cope with the isolation of space. It is also being used by people working in Antartica. This now has a disclaimer on it that says “While not specifically developed for the social distancing and quarantine measures associated with COVID-19, this research resource demonstrates approaches to the stress, depression and conflict that can come with confinement.” So it’s maybe not such a stretch after all.

Maybe our answer is the same as the one the astronauts came up with. Maybe, every now and then, we just need to look out the window and watch the world go by.