To The Moon! (In a Minivan)
Fast Company, December, 2007 by Charles Fishman
T he essential technology America's space-shuttle astronauts depend on, which almost no one outside NASA knows about, is paper. Not just a file folder of vital checklists but actual piles of paper--stacks and stacks of it. Every minute of flight, every experiment, every space walk, is scripted. The routines are rehearsed in advance, manuals in laps, over and over. The loose-leaf sheets--called FDFs, or flight data files--are organized into functional sets, held together with three metal rings.
When the day comes to pull on the orange go-to-spcae suits, the paper goes too--250 pounds of it. Astronauts, strapped in for launch, have critical FDFs Velcroed to their legs for easy access. When you're hurling a 30-year-old spaceship into orbit, some things are not going to feel...
Most Recent Business Articles
- Multiple criteria evaluation and optimization of transportation systems
- Multi-criteria analysis procedure for sustainable mobility evaluation in urban areas
- A two-leveled multi-objective symbiotic evolutionary algorithm for the hub and spoke location problem
- Multi-criteria analysis for evaluating the impacts of intelligent speed adaptation
- The development of Taiwan arterial traffic-adaptive signal control system and its field test: a Taiwan experience
Most Recent Business Publications
Most Popular Business Articles
- 7 tips for effective listening: productive listening does not occur naturally. It requires hard work and practice - Back To Basics - effective listening is a crucial skill for internal auditors
- FAS 109: a primer for non-accountants - Financial Accounting Standards Board's "Statement 109: Accounting for Income Taxes"
- Design a commission plan that drives sales - Sales Commissions
- Too Young to Rent a Car? - 25-years-old the minimum age for car renting - Brief Article
- LIFO vs. FIFO: a return to the basics
