@CWOTUS In reality, one of the primary screening mechanisms would be, in fact, to subject the prospective crew members to exactly these kinds of “closed room” potentially abrasive and noxious environments to see how they would react to one another and resolve differences, or simply go-along-to-get-along, accept one another’s rough edges, and minimize their own hard edges.
If the mission was not going to take forever, but a fairly long time, say 8 years to Neptune, a years of study of the planet, and an 8 year trip back to Earth, that would be a long, long time. How long would they need to sequester the mission team together to determine if they would work? Would they plan on getting them to gel long enough to the fact they would become like family on the trip up?
Which is not to say that problems would never or could never develop, or that a crew member could snap for some reason and deliberately injure – that is, severely injure with intent to maim – or kill another. In that case, as in most other such cases of crime under duress, it’s a near certainty that the commander would have the power of summary judgment and execution, should that be necessary.
As it has been said, a lot would do with the construction of the craft. If it were tight quarters, no extra or wasted space and a crew member assaulted and violently raped another crew member, and there was no suitable place to place him, if the captain felt to keep the victim and any other female crew member safe the person had to be jettisoned out the airlock, but that person had an important assignment like he was the only one who could navigate the craft or program a crucial system on the craft like climate control, or the air scrubbers, etc. Could he really be executed for the crime? If he can’t because the whole mission might fail and the entire crew will die, what can the captain really do?
@Buttonstc @Darth_Algar That wouldn’t work in deep space until we build more fully functional space stations similar to Babylon 5 or DS9 so for severe crimes like murder it would have to be out the airlock.
If the technology is such that spacecraft could move quickly enough to where the perpetrator could be dropped off at the nearest planet or space station in a matter of days (without taking too much from the mission), the the confined would probably be dropped off to face trail and imprisonment elsewhere.
If they are one of the first missions ”out there”, I don’t think they will have a space station or something to dump him off on