Safety Messages Videos

In the U.S. Marine Corps, all leaders are asked to do two things: 1) accomplish the mission and 2) take care of your people. Usually, this is followed with “If you do No. 2, your people will take care of No. 1.”

There are a lot of things that fall under “taking care of your people.” Some of the more obvious ones are building unit cohesiveness, providing training and development at all levels, ensuring safe and adequate working spaces, and ensuring your people have the tools and equipment necessary for mission accomplishment.

Another critical part of taking care of your people is establishing a positive “command climate.” One definition of command climate is what life is like within the organization. It is the culture of the unit, the way it conducts its business. The leader of the organization is solely responsible for its command climate. This responsibility includes ensuring capable and competent management exists at all levels within the organization. The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) offers senior leadership insight into both the performance of individual managers within the organization and the unit’s command climate. Question 17 in the FEVS asks if employees feel they can report an issue without fear of retribution. For NASA, the best place to work in the federal government, the percentage of positive responses to that question is approximately 80 percent. We can interpret that as one out of every five employees telling senior management, through this survey, that the climate in his or her unit needs to be improved. This particular issue is critically important to NASA because of the difficult and challenging nature of our missions. It is vital that managers are aware of any issues so they can evaluate the associated risk to people and missions. A command climate that didn’t encourage or tolerate people bringing up issues played a role in both shuttle mishaps.

I encourage you to mine your FEVS for information on the command climate throughout your organization. Question 17 is a good place to start. As the Aerospace Advisory Panel once reminded us, “It shouldn’t take an act of courage to raise an issue.”

Each year in the U.S., over 5.4 million cases of non-melanoma skin cancer are treated in more than 3.3 million people. There are more new cases of skin cancer than breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer combined. One in five Americans will develop skin cancer over the course of a lifetime. Melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer, can develop from less dangerous types of skin cancer. Although simple screening exams can catch this process before it begins, one person dies of melanoma every hour. We are all vulnerable.

As a member of the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention, NASA has been working to lower these statistics. The first year on the council, NASA was awarded the American Academy of Dermatology’s Golden Triangle Award for our agencywide skin cancer prevention efforts.

Please take time to view this message from Dr. J.D. Polk on behalf of the Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer and remember to set up a screening exam during your next physical. It’s quick and simple and could possibly save your life.

Lightning strikes the U.S. about 25 million times each year, killing an average of 49 people. Many more are struck and suffer severe injuries. Many of us may carry inaccurate, preconceived notions concerning what to do when lightning strikes. This month, Steve Cash, director of Safety and Mission Assurance at Marshall Space Flight Center, debunks the myths and shares the hard facts of lightning strikes. He also addresses what we can do to protect ourselves.

As leaders, we often say, "Take care of your people." Some of the most serious risks we face pay no attention to workplace boundaries. This month, Grant Watson, director of Safety and Mission Assurance at Langley Research Center, shares his personal message of how his parents’ heart disease changed how he regarded his own heart health. May his message encourage you to reflect on your own story and on lowering heart disease risk.

After a mishap or major disaster, it’s natural to ask what we could have done better had we only known about a defect or flaw sooner. Sometimes those who see something before the test begins or the vehicle launches speak up. Sometimes they’re heard. NASA has experienced mishaps and tragedies where individuals within and outside of our agency had technically sound differing views that were never heard by decision-makers.

Although NASA’s process for submitting a dissenting opinion is outlined in NPD 1000.0B, NPR 7120.5E which includes the NASA Spaceflight Program and Project Management Handbook, Program and Project Managers should be actively seeking out dissenting opinions and addressing them in a clear, open and timely manner. This presentation will focus on the dissenting opinion process, identifying what a dissent is and how the process should unfold. Please take some time to thoughtfully reflect on this presentation; after all, it could be one of us whose choice to speak up could save lives at some point.

Procurement of aircraft parts without specific knowledge and expertise is a significant risk. Each center that operates aircraft currently handles parts acquisition differently, without a standard set of agency-wide processes or procedures. By consolidating aircraft parts purchases at the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC), we have the ability to standardize the acquisition of quality aircraft parts and services.

However, this is not without its own challenges. While some flying centers will see no impact since they acquire aircraft parts via existing maintenance contracts, other centers possess greater potential issues. Centers no longer have closed-loop systems to ensure that the aircraft parts they are purchasing are the parts that they receive. Non-flying centers may acquire Unmanned Aerial Systems subject to the same risks. If this situation is not addressed properly, we could be increasing risk to our aircraft fleet. Combining the knowledge of aircraft maintenance experts from each center with the NSSC may be the solution to providing parts and supplier assurance.

On Nov. 15, 2014, four workers died and a fifth was hospitalized after exposure to a 24,000-pound methyl mercaptan leak at a DuPont plant in La Porte, Texas. The leak occurred in a building that was positioned over chemical plant piping, which included a failed valve. The Chemical Safety Board investigation later found that the valve had no documented function and served no manufacturing purpose. The enclosed office space was not designed to be a confined space, and hazard assessments did not identify Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH) risks within the space. However, the workers were overcome by toxic gas while doing normal work there.

This month we look at the DuPont La Porte incident and three other incidents where workers were overcome by toxic or oxygen-displacing gases while performing routine work. In each of these situations, the risk of personal exposure to IDLH atmospheres was either not identified or underestimated by management or the workers operating in those environments.

On May 7, 2007, the composite reflector for the Aquarius spacecraft underwent acoustic testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Environmental Test Chamber. The reflector was damaged by an anomalous test procedure stemming from a deviation from the normal test procedure. Additionally, the test control system software was not up-to-date, and there was no acoustic subject matter expert present during the test. Although Aquarius launched and successfully completed its mission, the test deviation and lack of diligence resulted in a Class A Mishap.

Due diligence is necessary when engineering, operating and maintaining state-of-the-art flight hardware. We test as much as possible in order to assure high rates of success across all of our programs and projects. Testing itself may be viewed as a measure of diligence — perhaps even a luxury during periods of low funding. However, it is necessary that we are thorough and conscientious in our testing procedures as well.

Maintenance of infrastructure has been a popular topic for news media this past year, with outlets reporting on the degradation of dams, bridges and even the U.S. highway system. At NASA, the challenge of balancing rising maintenance costs and renovating, replacing or repurposing decades-old infrastructure grows with the end of each major program and with flat or declining budgets.

In 2014, the cost of not performing maintenance on a low-risk system became apparent when Langley Research Center’s Transonic Dynamics Tunnel suffered a cooling coil breach and subsequent water intrusion. Due to the unique operating parameters of the tunnel, mitigating the leak was a lengthy and challenging process. Moreover, the inoperative tunnel lost Langley potential testing revenue upwards of $2 million. Although a series of fiscally sound decisions may prevent systematic maintenance in the short run, we must be aware of the long-term risk involved with every system.

NASA projects are flying Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) at an ever-growing rate to complete scientific research, assist other government agencies with emergency response and learn how to safely navigate the National Airspace System along with crewed aircraft. While many weigh just a few pounds, measure flight time in minutes and are limited to line-of-sight control, some weigh thousands of pounds, have international range and utilize satellite-link control. A wide range of potential issues exist.

What are the rules? Who helps researchers and operators understand and follow them? This month's message focuses on SMA requirements for UAS operations in a world of change.