Human Factors in Space Engineering

http://www.eraualumni.org/s/867/index.aspx?sid=867&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1661&ecid=1661&crid=0&calpgid=15&calcid=889

ERAU Daytona is gaining support for a space transportation R&D institute. Among the fields the institute will be pushing is HFE in space flight. I'm still working on getting a contact for more info, but this is definitely interesting.

As a note, in Doc Travis's latest book "Introduction to Rocket Science and Engineering" (Travis S. Taylor, CRC Press. Copyright 2009) he covers all the basics of rocketry and space flight. He covers government acquisition phases and how detailed such acquisition programs need to be. He even slightly hints at the need for human factors... but there is no HFE chapter. :(

Maybe I should write it for him? XD

Lets switch gears for a moment.

Safety.

What is safe? Can something ever truly be safe? Should we define a new word (safe-ish) instead? Is there a reason for everything to be "safe".

What would the shifts be. Instead of the most common last words being "hey watch this!" perhaps we could change it to "well, it was safe-ish".

:D

There is a new post coming

It's simply taking a little more time than usual. :D

Empire: Total War

Come on, admit it! You're really jonesin' for a chance to coop with me and take over the napoleonic world. :D

Yerkes-Dodson Law

I'm being evil today and giving everyone homework.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Yerkes/Law/

This paper is the work that eventually led to the "inverted U" Yerkes-Dodson law of human performance. The law posits that as stimulation increases, arousal (think alertness not the other, more fun version) increases to a point. After that point further stimulation theoretically results in a decrease in arousal. Sounds valid on the face of it (I love that phrase). There are issues with the initial paper (obviously the first issue would be that the study involved mice, not people).

Now others have done studies trying to apply the conclusions of this paper to humans (and the studies are arguable as to their validity). Your homework is to read this original work and tell me what some of the other issues are with the conclusions.

:D