The NASA Ballooning Program, situated in Goddard’s Space Flight Center in Wallops Flight Facility, has created and tested various amounts of balloons for the purpose of developing better technologies for deep space exploration. The payloads that these balloons carry aid in scientific advancement and research and are also used as a part of the missions for exploring Space. These low cost missions, aproximatley1/30th of the cost of a space mission, help STEM professionals to gather numerous data sets in order to form precise conclusions or develop better technologies. On April 20th, 2010, NASA launched a balloon for the payload of the National Compton Telescope; however, an unpredicted error occurred. In the process of launching the balloon, the payload came broke free, tearing through the airport fence which served as a barrier between the …show more content…
While no one was technically injured or wounded, this incident tore through many of people’s cars, causing irreversible damage to both the cars and the payload. Inevitably, many factors were at a play in this error. Errors that caused this mishap include human error, environmental factors, miscommunication among people, and malfunction in the balloon and its other parts. Human error refers to the fact that the pre-flight assessment only covered ascent and over flight launch phases, but not the actual launch phase. While there was a hazard safety zone envisioned, there was no clear clarification on whether or not the area was a set or constantly changing range, making the zone for danger unpredictable. Miscommunication occurred when the Launch Director saw the crowd of spectators and asked for any workers to move the people out of the way. An off-duty crew member in the crowd of spectators towards the South, heard the command and moved them up north. A deputy site director with spectators
The plane touched down 2000 feet into the runway and it was believed that Pilot did not deploy the thrust reversers till 18 seconds after touchdown which was way too late and by that time, the aircraft was only 1000 feet away from the end of the runway and it was likely to smash into the fence. Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) showed the Southwest Airlines jet had...
Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant native in bogs and swamp lands in North and South Carolina. It was discovered in the 1700s and named after the Greek goddess Dione which gave it the scientific name Dionaea. The species name muscipula came from the Latin word “Mus” (mouse) and “Cipula” (trap). Venus flytrap is one of the only two known species of plants that use fast-closing, double-spaced trap mechanism to capture insects.
This turned out to be a serious safety hazard with the expected loss of life. But they labelled it as an Acceptable risk, instead of finding a solution.
Mahoney was traveling north in the southbound lane at an extremely high amount of speed. The right front of the pickup truck hit the right front of the bus, breaking off the bus’s suspension and driving the leaf spring backward into the gas tank mounted outside the frame, just behind the front door. The spring speared the sixty-gallon tank, which had just been filled ten minutes earlier, punching a two and a half-inch hole in it. The gas tank caught fire and killed twenty-seven of the sixty-seven people on board. If the pickup had hit a few inches to the right, it would have been stopped by the bus’s frame rail instead of shearing trough sheet metal toward the fuel tank.
Finally, in 1997, the US military admitted to lying about the object being a weather balloon. Instead they claim that the wreckage was part of a “top-secret experiment”(Mitton 11) involving some sort of balloon. Steve MacKenzie’s response, “if the object he tracked had been a weather balloon, secret or not, his superiors would have ordered him to ignore it.”(Dudley 35)
“In the front seat was Gregg, driving, Sarah, in the middle, and Robyn, on the passenger side. In the rear seat was Jeff, behind the driver, Haley, in the middle, and Rachel, on the passenger side. EVERYONE was wearing their SEAT BELTS, as is our family habit. EVERYONE walked away from this accident with only bruises. The only blood was Robyn had small nicks from glass in a couple of places on her right arm and right leg.
Air Crash Investigations: Cockpit Failure (S10E01). (2014, March 5). Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1FG8gOKMoo
From our research and findings regarding the crash it can be deduced that the crash was primarily caused by a fracture in the rail track that occurred when
Rodney Rocha is a NASA engineer and co-chair of Debris Assessment Team (DTS). When possibility of wing damage appeared he requested an additional imagery to obtain more information in order to evaluate the damage. This demonstrates that he actually tried to resolve the issue. However, due to absence of clear organizational responsibilities in NASA those images were never received. Since foam issue was there for years and risk for the flights was estimated as low management decided not to proceed with this request. After learning of management decision Rocha wrote an e-mail there he stated that foam damage could carry grave hazard and have to be addressed. At the same time this e-mail was not send to the management team. Organizational culture at NASA could be described as highly bureaucratic with operations under standard procedures only. Low-end employees like Rocha are afraid to bring any safety-related issues to the management due to delay of the mission. They can be punished for bringing “bad news”. This type of relationship makes it impossible for two-way communication between engineers and managers, which are crucial for decision-making in complex env...
On its first day in orbit NASA engineers came to the conclusion that the foam debris that hit the left wing might have caused severe damage to the shuttle and could prevent it from a safe reentry.
Fisher, D., & Phillips, T. (2003, April). Launch a Frisbee into orbit. The Technology Teacher, 10-15. Retrieved October 20, 2004, from InfoTrac database.
The Space Ship Columbia is nothing short of a technical disaster on many parts of NASA. The Space Shuttle had a design flaw which caused a piece of foam to break of the Shuttle as it ascended into orbit. It was not the excess fuel the shuttle had, but a design flaw using foam. The foam had then stuck to the left wing of the shuttle which caused extensive damage to it causing the explosion. This damage allowed atmospheric gases into the shuttle that essentially destroyed the ship. The reaction to Columbia was similar to the reactions seen to the spaceship Challenger Disaster. NASA suspended all space shuttle missions for two years, just as they had with Challenger. The funding of NASA and the Space Exploration program were not drastically underfunded
Unfortunately, the airplane hit the ground about 6,300 feet north of the approach end of runway 17L, hit a black 1971 Toyota Celica with one of its engines on a highway north of the runway, killing the driver instantly, smashed into two
The NTSB conclude that the possible cause of the accident was the captain’s improper response to the activation of the stick shaker, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which the airplane did not recover. The possible factors causing this accident were: (1) the flight crew’s failure to monitor airspeed in relation to the rising position of the low- speed cue. (2) the flight crew’s failure to adhere to sterile cockpit procedures. (3) the captain’s failure to effectively manage the flight (4) Colgan Air’s inadequate procedures for airspeed selection and management during approaches in icing conditions.
This term paper reviews the three most common catagories of aviation accident causes and factors. The causes and factors that will be discussed are human performance, environmental, and the aircraft itself. Although flying is one of the safest means of transportation, accidents do happen. It is the investigators job to determine why the accident happened, and who or what was at fault. In the event of an accident, either one or all of these factors will be determined as the cause of the accident. Also discussed will be one of the most tradgic plane crashes in aviation history and the human factors involved.