Extroverts not fit for long space missions?

Even as NASA plans to send humans to Mars in the coming years, researchers have found that extroverts on long-term space missions could potentially be a "liability".

A missions to Mars could take as long as three years to complete a round trip.

"Extroverts tend to be talkative, but their gregarious nature may make them seem intrusive or demanding of attention in confined and isolated environments over the long term," a new study suggested.

"You are talking about a very tiny vehicle, where people are in very isolated, very confined spaces," Suzanne Bell, an associate professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago was quoted as saying.

Extroverts have a little bit of a tough time in that situation, Bell added.

Having an extrovert on board a long-term deep space mission could be a disadvantage because if one person on a crew always wants to talk, while the other members are less social, "it could actually get pretty annoying" in that environment, she said.

For the NASA-funded study, researchers reviewed previous studies on teams who lived in environments similar to those of a long-term space mission, including simulated spacecraft missions of more than 100 days, as well as missions in Antarctica.

NASA is interested in a number of issues related to planning long-term space missions, including how to put together the most compatible teams for the missions, Live Science reported.