1985 NASA-Rockwell Space Station Crew Safety Study: results from Mir

In 1985, Rockwell International (now Boeing--North American) completed the Space Station Crew Safety Alternatives Study for NASA. This five-volume study identified a wide range of potential safety threats and hazards that the crew might encounter on the future International Space Station. These threats included fire, explosion, collision, decompression, contamination, and radiation, among many others. One volume focused on the human factors aspects of safety, featuring the Crew Safety-Human Factors Interaction Model. In this model, a stressor (such as one of the threats) can lead to degraded performance, which can contribute to human error, unless appropriate and effective countermeasures are available to the crew. In 1986, the Soviet Union launched the Mir Space Station, the "second generation" that followed the Salyut series of space stations. The Mir was designed for a five-year life on orbit. It remained in use for fourteen years. During the first ten years, it performed well, with few safety issues. However, during the last four years, the aging station--operating at more than two times beyond its design lifetime--encountered a variety of safety hazards and human factors issues. Despite these often serious problems, the Mir crews always found a way to save the station, and no crew member was seriously injured or killed. This paper evaluates the safety record on Mir, and compares it to the NASA-Rockwell study, that was contemporaneous with the construction and launch of Mir. This comparison and analysis can provide a foundation for future space crew safety and related human factors support.