Space Crew Cohesion & Morale Simulator

Crew & Mission

Crew size 6

Mission duration 180 d

Habitat crowding 50%

Earth comm delay 4 min

Sim speed 4 d/s

Live Readouts

Team cohesion

50%

Avg morale

60%

Conflict events

Mission stress

How it works

Each crew member i carries a morale m_i ∈ [0,1] and every pair (i,j) carries a cohesion score C_ij ∈ [0,1]. Every simulated day, random pairwise interaction events fire; each one succeeds or turns into friction with a probability set by the current mission stress S(t):

P(positive interaction) = 0.78 - 0.5·S(t) + 0.2·(C_ij - 0.5)
success → C_ij += 0.03(1 - C_ij),  m_i, m_j += small boost
conflict → C_ij -= 0.05·C_ij,      m_i, m_j -= small penalty, conflict++

m_i(t+dt) += dt·[ 0.15·(mean_j C_ij − 0.5) − 0.2·S(t) − 0.05·(m_i − 0.5) ]

Mission stress S(t) combines three real, documented drivers of long-duration crew friction:

S(t) = 0.25 + 0.35·crowding + 0.15·(delay/24)
        + 0.35·exp( -(t/T − 0.75)² / (2·0.05²) )   ← "third-quarter effect"

Crowding — habitat volume per person; denser stations raise baseline friction (ISS / submarine crew studies).
Comm delay — one-way Earth-Mars light-time (0–24 min) reduces real-time psychological support from mission control, nudging conflict risk up.
Third-quarter phenomenon — morale in Antarctic winter-over and Mars-500-style isolation missions dips sharpest not at the start, not at the end, but around 70–80% of the way through; modeled here as a Gaussian bump in S(t) centered at 0.75·T.

The 3D view encodes each crew member's height above the station ring by (m_i − 0.5): confident, cohesive crews float above the ring; strained ones sag below it. Connecting lines fade from green to red as C_ij falls.

Day 0 / 180

Strong cohesion Strained cohesion

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