ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Space Technol.
Sec. Space Exploration
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frspt.2025.1652557
This article is part of the Research TopicHuman Behavior in Extreme Conditions: Novel Approaches and TechnologiesView all 8 articles
NASA leadership: Utilizing awe-narratives to enhance well-being
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Health and Social Care, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- 2College of Leadership and Public Service, Lipscomb University, Nashville, United States
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ABSTRACT The well-being of astronauts on long-duration space missions is critical to current and future mission success. It is equally important that those who support astronauts, pre-mission, during the mission, and post-mission, are thriving as well. Therefore, this interpretative phenomenological analysis study examines how a selection of NASA leaders perceive a phenomenon, awe, along with related resilience practices, as supporting their well-being in both their professional work and personal lives. The results reveal that awe-narrative interviews can support them professionally while also enhancing their overall well-being. Awe narratives have the ability to serve as a gateway to other resilience practices, including cognitive reappraisal, finding meaning and purpose in life, gratitude, hope and optimism, and social connectedness. These results suggest the awe narrative-based interventions can offer both an evidence-based and practical way to benefit NASA personnel, as well as other professionals working in high-pressure and stressful environments.
Keywords: NASA, awe, Narrative psychology, narrative medicine, Narrative Therapy, resilience
Received: 23 Jun 2025; Accepted: 16 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Thompson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jeff Thompson, mediator.jeff@gmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.