These Things Happen All the Time

In one instance, the hardware for one of the experiments had already been built, but the labels for the equipment had not come in. Because we must make quick decisions in the group, we decided to ship the hardware to a hotel and have the labels held back until we arrived at the hotel. When we arrived at the hotel, we put the labels on ourselves, and took the equipment in ourselves. We still made the delivery on time.

Sometimes during shuttle missions astronauts cannot find items and they may only have a small amount of time to find them. We can't talk directly to the astronauts. Sometimes they go into a blackout during orbit and they can't communicate with ground control. We cannot talk to the astronauts when they are sleeping. There is also a hierarchy of people that can speak directly with the astronauts and our group is low on the hierarchy. Therefore, if the astronauts call down asking about equipment, we must be knowledgeable about the hardware and how to get it.

Sometimes we have to just let our experiment go if something doesn't work. We must not only understand our own priorities for the mission but also those for the shuttle.

If a principal investigator wants to change an experiment that request may mean that we must go from one group to another and try to understand how the changes will affect the mission.

There are also other questions that must be addressed. On an internal level we have to determine if a project can be built, whether or not crew training is already completed, and if a model of the equipment can be built. On an external level we have to determine if there is enough room on the shuttle for the experiment, if the experiment can be returned on the shuttle, if the crew has enough time to do the experiment, and if the equipment for the experiment can qualify for flight.