What's with all the mishaps at KSC?

[trailrider]

Even after a "safety standdown", there seems to be a problem with personnel carelessness, resulting in dinged foam on the ET, damage to the remote manipulator arm, a worker falling off the top of a building and getting killed, and now damage to a power controller due to it being plugged in the wrong way! (Why was there not a connector that could only be plugged in correctly?)<br /><br />Is morale so bad or training and supervision to blame? Or has Murphy simply been put on the payroll? S-G: Inquiring minds (who used-ta-was a rocket engineer and USAF missile maintanence type) want to know! <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra! (Or just give me a torque wrench and a haz-I meter an' I'll get the bird off the ground!)

 

[CalliArcale]

Quick factoid:<br /><br />Murphy was a real person, and he was a proponent of designing things so that if they will only work when connected one way, that is the only way they can be connected. ("Keyed" connectors, in other words.) He was involved in testing involving rocketsleds (ejection seat testing, I think). They had to connect a whole bunch of sensors to a dummy. Each sensor had to be attached a specific way, but they were not keyed. One day, someone actually managed to wire up every single connector backwards, completely ruining the experiment.<br /><br />In dismay, Murphy commented that if there are two ways to do something and one will result in catastrophic failure, someone will do it.<br /><br />This eventually evolved into "if anything can go wrong, it will". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[jamie_young]

I think they are just being reported more, than the incidents happening more. With it being RTF the processing is getting reported more than usual.

 

[spacefire]

I guess KSC employees haven't read their own motto:"Failure is not an option" <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[steve82]

"(Why was there not a connector that could only be plugged in correctly?)"<br /><br />In general that's what the rules say. I guess they must waive it for certain kinds of ground support equipment. <br />

 

[vulture2]

There is wider reporting of incidents and more publicity than usual. However there are activities going on that haven't happened for awhile so people may be a little rusty. When shuttles are turning around every three months things become more routine. The unfortunate fellow who fell off the roof was with an outside construction contractor.

 

[trailrider]

"So there is another ex-443 here!"<br /><br />3124G-1 actually. But a MIMS "hood" (black baseball caps) is a MIMS hood regardless! For the uninitiated, BMAT officially stands for Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician. But those who were there know it really meant "Brooms, Mops & Assorted Trash"! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />In 1965, I learned what the non-rated USAF meant to a brown-bar during a "Best Work" effort... The team chief, a captain, used his own power grinder to remove the blistered paint from the inside of a large truck. The butter-bar did the hard scrubbing with a wire brush. And the airman followed behind with the spray can of chromate primer and then the paint! Truck still blew freeze plugs everytime you left the base in below-freezing WX! But I digress...<br /><br />Oh, yes, Capt. Murphy was real. He worked for Col. Dr. John Paul Stapp, the Man Who Rode the Rocket Sleds! Met Stapp, but not the physical manifestation of Murphy! But Murphy LIVES! Be akert! <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /><br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!

 

[mlorrey]

"I guess KSC employees haven't read their own motto:"Failure is not an option" "<br /><br />On the contrary, given the poor reading comprehension of children graduating from our government schools, it is clear they simply misread the motto. They assume that failure is therefore mandatory, since it isn't optional.... <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[drwayne]

In my case, its 100%, with a high probability of getting it wrong the second time.<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

hey, honest mistake!<br />That would explain the STS program, cancelling NASP and X33 and X38....heck, that would explain everything NASA has done since the Apollo program. <br />I wonder when that motto was generated?!?!<br />Maybe that's when things started going screwy for NASA. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[trailrider]

" 'I guess KSC employees haven't read their own motto:"Failure is not an option' " <br /><br />On the contrary, given the poor reading comprehension of children graduating from our government schools, it is clear they simply misread the motto. They assume that failure is therefore mandatory, since it isn't optional.... "<br /><br />Maybe they ought to post a quote from Walt Williams, one of the original NACA/NASA bosses: "You don't get medals for on-time failures!" And add Trailrider's correlary, "Or for delayed failures either!" (That wasn't intended to be a pun, but with Rep. Tom Delay's departure from the House of Representatives, it turns out to be a very bad pun indeed. Especially the loss of his positive influence on spending for space exploration!)<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!