42. Lesson: Designers Should View Their Product
White room restrictions inhibit the detail designers from examining the hardware they are responsible for. Access to assembly areas should be controlled, but not eliminated.
Background:
Skylab, like all space vehicles, was built with careful control of access to keep the vehicle clean, to inventory all material brought inside, and to prevent interference with the assembly and checkout crews. As a result, designers rarely viewed their final product in the as-built condition. Perhaps such access might have resulted in discovery of the design error in the auxiliary tunnel.
These lessons learned are from SKYLAB LESSONS LEARNED AS APPLICABLE TO A LARGE SPACE STATION, A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The School of Engineering and Architecture Of the Catholic University of America For the Degree Doctor of Engineering by William C. Schneider, Washington, D.C., 1976.
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Last Revised:
March 07, 2004
Digital Engineering Institute
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Richard Katz
