Old Lessons Apply in the New World The Vision for Space
Old Lessons
Apply in the New
World
The Vision for Space
Exploration
Presented to the Conference on Quality in the
Space and Defense Industries 2007
Cape Canaveral, Florida
March, 2007
C. Herbert Shivers, PhD, PE, CSP
Deputy Director
Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate
NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Part One - Panel Introduction –
Apollo Lessons
NASA Evolved from Saturn to
Shuttle to Ares
Safe Exploration is Still the Goal
Dr. Eberhard Rees
– Dr. Rees succeeded Dr. Von
Braun as Director of Marshall
Space Flight Center (March 1,
1970 - Jan. 19, 1973 )
–
Dr. Rees spoke to The
World Management
Congress in Munich in 1972
– Dr. Rees spoke words that are as true today as they were then
– We do well to remember
Planning
To Assure effective program execution:
“A superior planning effort without diligent planning – especially systems planning – right from the start, any project is doomed sooner or later to run into most serious difficulties.”
Dr. Eberhard
Rees
Significance of
Planning
“We had great difficulties in finding technical experts who understood the value of planning. For the military, strategic planning is a matter of course. The same is true for any commercial undertaking where to neglect planning is to court bankruptcy. Why it is so hard to introduce proper planning into project and system management of projects of a more scientific nature is perplexing to me.”
Dr. Eberhard Rees
Cost of
Quality
The Trade:
“The program management permits faulty components to enter the system – due to lack of quality control and testing – the components would only be detected in overall checkouts. And finally, unrealistically short time schedules endanger the quality of the product and cost control, whereas long, drawn-out time plans increase total project cost.”
Dr. Eberhard Rees
Risk
Balance
“There has to be an optimum balance among technical schedule.
Dr. Eberhard Rees
Vigilance
– “If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, then chronic unease is the price of safety.” Professor
James Reason (2005, p 37)
– One might just as well say, “quality”
SSE and Quality Engineering
Pre-design
System Safety, “Are the requirements inclusive, correct and being correctly implemented?”
• System focused perspective
Quality, “Are the requirements inclusive, correct and being correctly implemented?”
• System focused perspective
SSE and Quality Engineering
Post-design
System Safety, “Was the specification correct and what happens if the system meets or doesn’t meet the specification?”
•
All failures don’t create hazards, all hazards aren’t failure based, analyze interactions instead of single components
Quality, “Does the system as built meet its specification?”
• Component failure focused
Accident Causation
– The focus of accident causation has broadened over the years:
– Hardware and software failures (1950’s to present)
– Unsafe acts, errors and violations (1970’s to present)
– System and cultural issues (1980’s to present)
(James Reason, 2006)
Quality and System Safety both are instrumental in the prevention process
