06-22-2018, 09:01 AM
Interesting article. Don't know that things went "wrong" - the simulation was intended to test crew/team reaction to day-to-day events on a simulated Mars trip. A lot of good data was generated on a variety of crew responses. We do this kind of research in order to learn what can go wrong on a real mission where costs would be much higher. Assuming that the article accurately reflects what happened (never a good assumption) lots of lessons can be taken from the event:
1) Under no circumstances do you rush into a mission critical exercise until you are certain you have the necessary talents lined up to complete it (project delays are much less costly than project failures...);
2) When you have doubts about mission critical staff, find alternates that you don't have doubts about;
3) Make sure you have adequately trained staff that won't do stupid things like touch potentially live wires and then go into hysterical failure when they do...
1) Under no circumstances do you rush into a mission critical exercise until you are certain you have the necessary talents lined up to complete it (project delays are much less costly than project failures...);
2) When you have doubts about mission critical staff, find alternates that you don't have doubts about;
3) Make sure you have adequately trained staff that won't do stupid things like touch potentially live wires and then go into hysterical failure when they do...