NASA

Murray and Associates, Inc. (WMA), Houston, particularly Bob Webb, Bob Murray, and BiUy Magee, officers, and the talented WMA safety engineers and consultants. My time as director of WMA s Center for Advanced Safety Studies provided me with an opportunity to develop and teach system safety courses for NASA, DOD, DOT, and private industry and to participate in system safety projects. 

That this approach was not acceptable for certain programs— such as nuclear weapons and space travel—soon became apparent, at least to some. The consequences of accidents were too great. Trial-and-error and fly-flx-fly approaches were not adequate for systems that had to be first-time safe. 

system safety was born, or, more accurately, evolved. The history of system safety consists of 

The roots of the system safety effort extend back at least to the 1940s and 1950s. Accurately tracing the early transition from the traditional trial-and-error approach to safety to the first-time safe effort that lies at the heart of system safety is really impossible, but such a transition occurred as both aircraft and weapon systems became more complex and the consequences of accidents became less acceptable. 

System Safety for the 21 Century The Updated and Revised Edition of System Safety 2000, by Richard A. Stephans 

Even though the need for a more in-depth, upstream safety effort was recognized relatively early in the aviation and nuclear weapons fields, not until the 1960s did system safety begin to evolve as a separate discipline. In the 1960s 

Most agree that one of the first major formal system safety efforts involved the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program. A series of pre-Minuteman design-related silo accidents probably provided at least part of the incentive (U.S. Air Force 1987). 

Early system safety requirements were generated by the US. Air Force Ballistic System Division. Early air force documents provided the basis for MIL-STD-882 (July 1969), System Safety Program for Systems and Associated Subsystems and Equipment Requirements for. This document (and revisions MIL-STD-882A and MIL-STD-882B) became, and remain, the bible for the Department of Defense (DOD) system safety effort (Moriarty and Roland 1983). 

In addition to weapon systems, other early significant system safety efforts were associated with the aerospace industry, including civil and military aviation and the space program. 

Even thou the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) developed its own system safety program and requirements, the development closely paralleled the MIL-STD-882 approach and the DOD effort, primarily because the two agencies tend to share contractors, personnel, and, to a lesser degree, missions. 

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Here are just a few examples [5 - 18] of some good sites NTIAC, BlnstNDT, CSNDT, DGZfP, IOWA, SWRI, BAM, FhG, NASA, CORDIS, IRC, Panametrics, Krautkramer, IRT, QNet. 

The NASA Technical Report Server, http //techreports.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/NTRS... 

Panels of siUca aerogels have already been flown on several Space Shuttle missions (74). Currently a STARDUST mission has been planned by NASA to use aerogels to capture cometary samples (>1000 particles of >15 micron diameter) and interstellar dust particles... 

Heating Facihty and El Aero Heating Facihty, NASA/Ames. Numbers on the curves indicate stagnation pressure in MPa — balhstic entry -, lifting... 

A NASA Spinoff Cools the Fire, NASA Tech Briefs, March, 1988, p. 12. 

P. O. Chelsau, ReHabihty Computation Using Fault Tree Analysis, TR32-1542, NASA, Airport, Md., 1971. 

L. J. Bement, "AppHcation of Temperature Resistant Explosives to NASA Mission," in Symposium on Thermally Stable Explosives, NOL, White Oaks, Md.,June 1970. 

JMNNMF Structures and Mechanical Behavior Subcommittee Meeting, CPIA Pubhcation 566, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., May 1991. 

SolidPropellant Selection and Charactericyation, SP-8064, NASA, Cleveland, Ohio, 1971. 

Monographs on rockets and rocket propellants by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Lewis Research Center, Cleveland. These iaclude the foUowiag Solid Propellant Selection and Characteri tion, Report SP-8064,1971 Solid Rocket Motor Peformance, Report SP-8039,1971 Solid Rocket Motor Igniters, Report SP-8051,1971 Solid Rocket Motor Metal Cases, Report SP-8025, 1970, and Captive Eire Testing of Solid Rocket Motors, Report SP-8041,1971. 

P. M. Sawko and S. R. RiccitieUo, Tech. Brief ARC-11043, NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., July 1977. 

Handling Ha ardous Materials, NASA SP-5032, NASA, Washiagton, D.C., 1965, Chapt. 4. 

R. B. Jackson, Ocp/gen Difluoride Dandling Manual, Report No. NASA-CR-72401, Allied Chemical Corp., Morristown, N.J., Dec. 1970. 

R. F. Muraca, J. Neff, and J. S. Whittick, Physical Properties ofEiquid Oyygen D fluoride and Eiquid Diborane—M Critical Review, Report No. NASA-CR-88519, SRI-951581-4, Jet Propulsion Lab., Calif. Inst, of Tech., Pasadena, Stanford Research Inst., Menlo Park, Calif., July 1967. 

M. S. Toy, Utilfation of Oyygen Dfluoride for Syntheses ofEluoropolymers, Report No. Patent-3,931,132, Pat. AppL-45,549, NASA, Pasadena Office, Calif., Jan. 1976. 

E. L. Hyman andj. E. Tompkins, An EconomicStudy of Oyygen Dfluoride, Einal Report No. NASA-CR-117317, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.,... 

I. N. Einhorn and co-workers. Final Report, FRCjUU-dl, ETEC 75-022, NASA Contract No. NAS2-8244, National Technical Information... 

R. H. Eish, Proc. NASA Conf. MaterialsforImprovedFire Safety 11, 1 (1970). 

W. L. RoUer and co-workers. Grown Organic Matter as a Fuel Raw Material Source, NASA Report CR-2608, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1975. 

Polyimides (PI) were among the eadiest candidates in the field of thermally stable polymers. In addition to high temperature property retention, these materials also exhibit chemical resistance and relative ease of synthesis and use. This has led to numerous innovations in the chemistry of synthesis and cure mechanisms, stmcture variations, and ultimately products and appHcations. Polyimides (qv) are available as films, fibers, enamels or varnishes, adhesives, matrix resins for composites, and mol ding powders. They are used in numerous commercial and military aircraft as stmctural composites, eg, over a ton of polyimide film is presently used on the NASA shuttle orbiter. Work continues on these materials, including the more recent electronic apphcations. 

Three important linear aromatic Pis, namely LARC-TPI, LARC-160, and LARC-13 were developed by researchers at NASA-Langley Research Center (37—39) (Fig. 2). 

R. D. McCarty, Hydrogen Technological Survey—Thermophysical Properties, NASA SP-3089, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1975, pp. 518-519. 

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