How to Argue in Outer Space
Life lessons from the bewildering split screen of news from last week.
It’s hard to imagine a better case study in high versus good conflict than what happened in the news last week. If you felt the whiplash, watching this mash-up of the worst and the best humans can do, you were not alone.
We had, in one part of the world, U.S. and Israeli forces pursuing a poorly planned campaign of humiliation and mass violence against Iran, a high-conflict maneuver that will cause incalculable suffering in Iran and perpetuate generations of revenge-seeking against the United States and Israel.
At the very same time, in outer space, we had a group of U.S. and Canadian astronauts demonstrating what highly-trained, emotionally regulated humans can accomplish when they intentionally cultivate good conflict to do something extraordinary.
We have a powerful example of two possible paths forward for the United States. One looks strong, and one actually is.
Watching the Artemis II crew, you could make the mistake of thinking they had no conflict. But that is never true with a high-performing group of humans. Period.
Here’s Mission Specialist Christina Koch on NASA’s Houston, We Have a Podcast show, explaining the “privilege” of having conflict with her fellow astronauts:
“I have learned how awesome it can be to have the opportunity, as like an adult, to have a new family, to have people in your life that you can have conflict with, because, of course, you’re literally together almost all day, every day, and to come back together and love each other just as much, and that’s a rare thing outside of your actual immediate family, and we have that with each other, I would say. And learning how awesome of a privilege that is, is what these guys have taught me.”
NASA researchers have spent years studying human behavior in conflict — in preparation for deep space missions, and they have learned that the best way to prevent dysfunctional conflict is to build meaningful relationships and generate functional conflict, on purpose, well in advance. That is exactly what this crew did.
Here’s Commander Reid Wiseman talking about the relational work required to prepare for this mission:
“Honestly, I’d say it’s, it’s a lot of work when you when you take four professionals, we’re all very senior astronauts here, at NASA and with the Canadian Space Agency, and it definitely takes a lot of work. So we have really committed to getting to know one another, not just on a topical level, like really digging in, what makes each one of us tick, what kind of sets us off, what gets us motivated, how we respond to emergencies, but also just how we respond to group living. It has been a tremendous amount of work, but the cool thing for this crew is just how much effort we have been willing to put into it, and that is going to serve us really well when we got to spend 10 days together in the Integrity spacecraft going around the moon.”
Most of us avoid conflict with the people we work with, for understandable reasons. But eventually, avoidance takes a toll on us all. It requires intense effort to suppress our frustration and “perform” agreeableness, and the resentment builds.
At least two Russian space missions were reportedly terminated due to mismanaged interpersonal conflict. High conflict is a catastrophic risk, up on Earth and in space.
Here’s Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen explaining how critical healthy conflict was to the crew:
“In a lot of relationships in your life there, you know, there’s this opportunity where, if something frustrates you, sort of just brush it off, or you walk away from it, or your distance yourself from it. But in this relationship, it’s not like that. In this relationship, we we lean into it and come out stronger. And that’s, that’s pretty special thing.”
This crew of poet scientists was, it must be said, remarkable. Never before have I seen people communicate sophisticated science and complicated, raw human emotions at this level of vulnerability, while being recorded, under stress.
But there are lessons for all of us in how they did this. In the split screen of last week, between Iran and the Moon, we have a powerful example of two possible paths forward for the United States and all of humanity. One looks strong, and one actually is.
Here’s Pilot Victor Glover explaining that good conflict takes courage and discipline. And this is the only way to make lasting change and solve wicked problems in the modern world. Through this kind of durable strength:
“There’s this belief that, you know, astronauts get along great…But with this group, we put some some thought into getting help from professional psychologists psychiatrists, and helping us with performance and and optimizing the human in the human system. And I think the idea that we still disagree, but I think we disagree pretty well, pretty effectively…You don’t hear it like that, ‘You get along great,’ yeah, but we disagree pretty great, too. And I think that’s an important facet, like, and, you know, people hearing some of that messy stuff is, I think, important not to make it rose colored, like we just always show up, smiled, prepared, and things just go well for us. We have some hard things to get through, and it’s not always pretty, but we get back to the mission and and we come out better for it.”
Here’s to board games before launch,
Amanda
3 Good Things
How to Disagree Better, by behavioral scientist Julia Minson, is one of the rare conflict books based on actual data, not anecdote or intuition. Favorite detail: Humans are generally terrible at persuasion, and telling people to “be curious” when they go into hard conversations does not help. But it does help if we tack on a couple of basic sentences at the beginning and end of our arguments. Such as: “ This is is an important topic. I’m curious to hear what people who disagree with me think about this issue.” And, “That’s how I think about the issue, but I’d love to understand other points of view.” If people who disagree with you believe you genuinely want to learn, they will judge you as more moral, reasonable, trustworthy, likable and more intelligent.
Jobs! One of my favorite news outlets is hiring. Tangle, a newsletter and podcast that work very hard to treat the audience with respect and build trust through transparency and humility, is looking for an associate editor in the New York City area and a fully remote video editor.
Spring Reading: I have to read fiction to get to sleep at night, and it has to be well-written but not profoundly disturbing. This eliminates a lot of fantastic books, unfortunately. (I read upsetting things all day long, so I need a break at night.) I’m late to this one, but a friend recently recommended The Wedding People by Alison Espach. Who knew a book about a suicidal woman who gets mixed up in a stranger’s wedding could be laugh-out-loud funny? Take it to the beach, the subway, the moon, wherever you need to relax this month. And please let me know if you have a not-too-disturbing fiction book to recommend.
© 2026 Amanda Ripley. See privacy, terms and information collection notice.
On the astronautical theme, I just finished Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was pretty amazing, and did address learning to address personal conflict in the contexts of both family and space flight training. I loved it!
Great article. It's great to underline that this well-functioning crew didn't just happen. They applied rigor and intensity to their interpersonal relationships and their ability to work through conflict.