If you’re going to do something where you have just one shot, then you have to get it right first time, there can be no deviation. This is a very different requirement to just getting it right every time after a short teething period . Space exploration is full of one-shot right first time problems. For special problems you need special people.
High costs result in only the smallest error margins being afforded, so in mitigation, any part of a space mission that can be automated, is automated, and the use of commodity items helps. Whenever possible, human tasks are removed from the equation, but sometimes they’re a necessary part of the machine. There are times when a problem cannot be analysed without having a dynamic flexible and adaptable tool (the human) on board.
The Human within The Machine
The first astronauts (Gagarin, Shepard, Grissom, Titov, etc.) were all military pilots (often test-pilots) shortlisted because of their proven abilities in extreme flight conditions. The Apollo & Soyuz missions that those pilots undertook were real journeys into the unknown, not just testing unknown machinery, but journeys into an unknown environment where their vehicle would behave in uncertain ways.
Such was the success of those missions that journeys into Earth orbit appear to have become fairly routine. The first few Shuttle missions were televised live, but after that, they were relegated to an “and finally…” item on the news, and often not covered at all. The loss of Challenger and it’s seven crew refocused press attention on space travel and the fact that one-shot right-first-time problems can fail catastrophically.
If things do go wrong, the crew needs to be informed and focused, taking in a lot of information, filtering out the irrelevant and acting instinctively. When warnings and malfunctions are day-to-day events, intensive training aids the cognition process, helping complex tasks to become routine; keeping the human a part of the machine focused on the mission, to the exclusion of all else.
Mission Focus, No Deviation
In 2005, we had the opportunity to meet the Commander of Apollo 15, Col. David Scott, when he presented a lecture at the University of Portsmouth. Something occurred during his presentation that was, unintentionally, quite revealing about the astronaut mindset.
Speaking for an hour can be quite hard on the voice, so the university had provided a glass of water.
Midway through explaining something quite complex (he covered things like trans-lunar injection) Col. Scott caught the glass with the back of his hand and it fell from the podium, smashing on the carpeted floor, quietly but audibly.
There was no pause, not even a glance at the debris, not even the slightest break in sentence or paragraph.
Afterwards several of us commented about the glass, one person remarked “it was like it didn’t happen; he knew the it was lost before it hit the ground, so continued without falter”.
Col. Scott was not diverted from his task of delivering the lecture, and as a result, the audience were not diverted in their reception of it, nobody felt embarrassed for him, nobody rushed to clear it up, everything continued at full pace. There was absolutely no deviation.
The Human without The Machine
Singular focus on a goal is beneficial in an otherwise automated one-shot project, but what about afterwards, back on earth? When it’s combined with personal & emotional issues it can result in extreme and startling actions.
Yesterday, an astronaut was arrested at Orlando International Airport and charged with attempting to kidnap a love rival. The suspect had driven 900 miles non-stop from Texas to Florida wearing disposable nappies (to avoid having to stop for a wee). She then donned a wig and trench coat and followed her target to the car park, carrying the following: pepper spray, a BB gun, a steel mallet, a 4-inch folding knife, rubber tubing, rubbish bags and $600 in cash. She’s a married mother of three, and could face a life sentence if convicted.
So it seems nobody’s perfect, not even astronauts. Astronauts do things that would make the rest of us feel clumsy. Astronauts fall in love with the wrong people and go to extreme lengths in order to “just talk to” their love rival. Perhaps the unseen problem of being an astronaut is that you have to keep getting it right even after your last mission. An astronaut is put on a pedestal and expected not to screw up, ever. Right first time, right every time, no deviation.
Wikipedia has some interesting quotes from NASA spokespeople who are stunned and perplexed by the incident.
