Intelligent control of life support for space missions

Future manned space operations will include a greater use of automation than we currently see. For example, semiautonomous robots and software agents will perform difficult tasks while operating unattended most of the time. As these automated agents become more prevalent, human contact with them will occur more often and become more routine, so designing these automated agents according to the principles of human-centered computing is important. We describe two cases of semiautonomous control software developed and fielded in test environments at the NASA Johnson Space Center. This software operated continuously at the JSC and interacted closely with humans for months at a time.