Instructed by Andrew Chaikin, acclaimed space historian and author of “A Man on the Moon”

ü From February 21–22, 2024 (2 Days/Classes, approx. 8 Total Hours)

ü Daily from 1200-1600 Eastern Time (course slides will be available for download)

ü Principles of Success in Spaceflight reveals critical human behaviors essential for success in spaceflight projects. Presented by acclaimed space historian Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon (the main basis for Tom Hanks’ 1998 Emmy-winning HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon), the course leverages human behavior lessons from NASA’s history to guide spaceflight professionals on how to invite success and avoid failure.

ü All students will receive an AIAA Certificate of Completion at the end of the course.

OVERVIEW

What’s the critical difference between success and failure in spaceflight projects? Yes, the “rocket science” is hard—but if you ignore the human behavior piece of the system, you’re inviting failure. In the exacting business of spaceflight, as unforgiving as a high-wire walk, the surprising, counterintuitive reality is that success hinges on how we think about the work—the mindset we bring to our decisions—and the human behaviors that shape how we do the work. Are we open to new information that conflicts with our world view, or are we unconsciously telling ourselves a story that skews our perceptions? We may be blind to hard-wired failure ingredients like hubris, groupthink, non-communication, false perception of risk and that tribal syndrome of technical organizations everywhere called Not Invented Here. Are we in the grip of the insidious Reality Distortion Field created by cost and schedule pressure, unable to perceive that we’re headed down the slippery slope to failure or even tragedy? Or are we absolutely dedicated to proven success ingredients like systems thinking, painstaking attention to detail, risk reduction by design, clear and open communication, realistic testing for real understanding, what-if thinking, and openness to outside-the-box ideas?

Principles of Success in Spaceflight explores the impact of human behavior on success and failure in spaceflight projects through the lens of NASA history. Detailed case studies reveal the behavioral elements that became the root causes of NASA’s three major human spaceflight accidents: The spacecraft fire that took the lives of the Apollo 1 crew during a practice countdown in 1967, the Challenger accident in 1986, and the Columbia accident in 2003. We also see how each of these tragedies opened a window of cold, hard clarity that led to critical changes in mindset and behavior, enabling recovery from disaster. Unfortunately, history also teaches us how fragile—and brief—that window of clarity can be, and how shockingly easy it is to lose hard-won lessons and return to old, failure-inviting habits, again and again. Only a few years after Challenger, NASA was already forgetting what it had learned from that accident, paving the way for the Columbia tragedy and underscoring the critical need to not just learn from the past, but remember the lessons.

The course will include several opportunities for discussion and a chance to explore how the lessons of the past can be applied to today’s programs. We will understand why we must pay conscious attention to the stories we tell ourselves about our work, ourselves, and each other. And we will see why veteran NASA flight director and program manager Tommy Holloway told his people, “You’re not as smart as you think you are.”