Columbia’s Final Mission video case is designed to help you understand how failures occur and how you might prevent them in your own organizational life.
You have previously been assigned to play a role as a manager or engineer role and central figure in the team that managed this mission. Your password for your role is on the role group assignment page in Blackboard. You reach this page by clicking on Groups from the course home page, locate your assigned role and click on that group. If you have difficulties locating your group please contact me. You will note that there are some features to the video (such as a timeline and a calendar and NO back button) that is different from other videos you may have watched. All of the
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What prior thoughts and beliefs shaped the way you behaved during the mission?
b. What pressures affected you behavior and from where did these pressures originate?
c. In what ways did the culture impact your behavior?
d. If you were in this person’s shoes during the mission do you think you would have behaved differently? Why or why not?
The paper to be turned in should probably not be more than 10 pages double spaced.
Calvin Schomburg, senior engineer
Manager of Vehicle and Systems Analysis – United Space Alliance
Calvin Shomburg was a NASA technician for 38 years and is considered a senior engineer at the Johnson Space Center. He is an expert on the Thermal Protection System (TPS), which consists of tiles that protect the Orbiter from super-hot gases during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Foam strikes have occurred on previous flights, and have always been treated as maintenance issues upon return of the crew and vehicle. The foam strikes to the TPS have a very small chance of causing problems. Schomburg knows that only 200-400 of the over 23,000 tiles, on the left wing, can actually cause an issue. The foam strike on the STS-107 mission was similar to the STS-112, which was classified as a maintenance issue instead of a no safety-of-flight issue. Shomburg’s belief was that the impact at 81 seconds was too late to have enough energy to cause extensive damage to the
Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crewmembers aboard the ship were James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr., and Fred W. Haise, Jr. Before the launch, there had been a few problems. Thomas K. Mattingly was supposed to fly on the Apollo 13 but he was exposed to the measles. He didn’t have the antibodies to fight the disease, causing him to not be able to go into space. Swigert took his place. Right before the launch, one of the technicians saw that the helium tank had a higher pressure than expected. Nothing was done to fix this. During liftoff, the second-stage engine shut down, causing the other engines to run longer than planned. Apollo 13 was off to a rocky start.
Must be two to three double-spaced pages in length (not including the title and reference pages), and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. An example APA paper is provided in the Writing Center.
* Papers should contain 3-4 pages of text, double-spaced (this does not include the title page).
1. The body of the paper (excluding the title page and reference page) must be at least 1,500 words long.
The world has experienced very many huge moments, such big moments in which sometimes you don’t think it’s really happening. October 4, 1957, was one of those days. Because that was the day the world changed forever and there was no turning back. It was the day of the Sputnik launch. Sputnik was a Soviet satellite that orbited in the earth’s rotation 500 miles above the earth and traveling at about 18,000 mph. It took approximately 98 minutes for it to rotate the earth which meant it passed the United States seven times a day. It looked like it was from a whole another world or out of a movie or a fantasy story. It consisted of a ball with four stem like structures coming out and pointing down at the ground. The ball like structure
How does an individual’s perspective of, and response to, a crisis define him or her?
Before the causes and results of Kennedy’s decision to land on the moon can be adequately analyzed and discussed, it is necessary to understand the context of his time as President and the events that preceded it. Therefore, I will provide a small amount of context about the Cold War and the situation leading up to Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the moon” speech on September 12, 1962. (Citation).
1.I’d first have to say that the head of mission control on the ground was definitely
Ronald Dittemore, manager of Shuttle Program, received reports directly from Wayne Hale (manager of Launch Integration) and Linda Ham (manager of Space Shuttle Program Integration). It is clear that decision about foam issue was made based on communication with Linda Ham, stating that in previous flights had no critical problems with foam. Dittemore did not attempt to receive a professional opinion from the engineers. Furthermore, Rocha sent an e-mail to Dittemore in order to determine whether Columbia’s crew could make a space walk to perform an inspection of the wing. Answer to this e-mail was never received suggesting that communication attempts directly from engineers to high-level managers were rejected. NASA is a complex organization that maintains strict reporting relationship. Information exchange is built on hierarchy and rules did not facilitate fast informal communication between employees and high-level management. This filtering process diminished the information flow to the key decision-makers. To solve this hierarchical structure managers like Dittemore should exaggerate their ambiguous threats, avoid status differences and build trust among employees. Managers ought to communicate with specialists in order to obtain reliable information and understand the situation.
However, there are other sets of rules that are passed down from many years of religions context to help us enter the Kingdom of God someday. Including the Ten Commandments, which are the most well known by far. These were given to us by God, but received physically through Moses on Mount Sinai on stone tablets, according to The Bible. Since that moment if Christian history, there was then a God given guide to our actions and their proceeding effects that would impact our transition into the afterlife.
The Apollo 13 mission was a significant historical event, because of the dangerous repercussions that followed the explosion of the oxygen tank on Apollo 13. The story in which the astronauts Lovell, Swigert, and Haise surviving these errors during the flight is truly incredible. In the movie Apollo 13, the creators depicted most of the events involving the crew’s adventure to and from space quite accurately. Although creating most events successfully the creators of Apollo 13 failed in many regards when it came to the creation of the plans the crew used to survive, and the small details that were missed, involving the crew in the process of flying the space shuttle and surviving the accident.
Rockwell, the shuttle’s primary contractor, did not support the launch due to the possibility of ice leaving the structure and damaging the thermal shield tiles during takeoff. Their concerns were relayed to NASA, but in such a way that NASA chose to proceed with the launch [2]. Though this was eventually determined to be a non-issue in the Challenger launch, the true nature of the problems that can occur when an object strikes the shuttle during takeoff would not be learned until 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry due to damage of a heat shield tile that occurred during takeoff [2]--[3].
The Space Race was a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space. From 1955 until 1975, both sides battled it out to be the leader in the competition. Fueled by the Cold War and other causes of the beginning of the race, the Soviet Union and the United States fought for authority in a very public manner through the media. There were many achievements at this time and it led the way for many great things to come afterwards.
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee is an American Classic, that was written in the 60’s about how racism was in the South. It’s a story dealing with the small town of Maycomb, as it takes on the trial of a black man accused of raping a white girl. One of the main themes of the book is about the loss of innocence, and that can be seen from Jem Finch’s development as a main character in the book. As he learns more about the trial he realizes that many of the people he’s grown up with have stereotypes to blacks. Furthermore, Jem has to mature to see what is really happening in the town that he has lived all his life. In To Kill A Mockingbird Lee shows Jem being protective, a leader, and someone who is compassionate to display Jem’s growth in the book.
Every person in life must go through changes in their lifetime. Some are drastic changes and some are minor changes, but either way, a person must learn to cope with all of sorts of them. Change can take the best out of someone or it can bring the worst out in someone, for example, going to a new school, getting a new haircut, anything can make a difference in a persons life. In my situation, the most enormous change must have been coming to the United States with my family and trying to adjust to a new lifestyle.