NASA and the Russian space agency are unaware of a problem discovered and solved forty years ago that will cause mental breaks and fights on long term space missions. There have been mental breaks on scientific missions for over a hundred years including a mass insanity event on the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898.
None of the leaders of these expeditions and scientific missions have been aware of Subliminal Distraction. They did not know how to provide Cubicle Level Protection or warn astronauts/expedition members about this problem.
Subliminal Distraction, a normal feature of human physiology, is explained in college psychology under the physiology of sight and hearing. Acoustic SD is believed to be a fatiguing factor in business offices. The mental breaks of Visual SD are believed to be a harmless temporary episode of confusion. The Cubicle was designed to deal with the vision startle reflex to control the problem by 1968.
There was a full psychotic break on a Russian space mission, Soyuz-21, and a hatchet murder in a Russian Antarctic station. The Russian space agency proposed twelve reasons for the Soyuz-21 incident but none of them were proven. When fist fights began to happen over chess games Russia banned chess in space. Psychological problems continue on both Russian and American space missions. No cause has ever been proven for these mental problems but Subliminal Distraction is the most likely source for them.
The reason SD should be suspected is the too-small single-room situation in space missions and that most of the victims recover once they leave the confines of those cramped living and working arrangements. In the Belgian Polar Expedition incident there was one case of permanent insanity. Everyone else recovered when they worked three months outside the stranded ship to chop it out of the ice.
VisionAndPsychosis.Net is a six year investigation of SD. The Astronauts & Insanity page has the book references and links. I began this investigation when my wife had a psychotic break thirty days after her office in the payroll department of the University of Alabama was changed eliminating Cubicle Level Protection.
This problem is unknown by anyone in medicine or psychiatry. Knowledge of it is limited to a very few teachers and those designers/engineers working for office furniture manufacturers of Systems Furniture, Cubicles. They all believe it is harmless.
http://visionandpsychosis.net/