Soviet Shuttle was safer by design According to veteran russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, quoted in a New Scientist article the soviet Buran shuttle (1) was much safer than the American shuttle due to fundamental design decisions. Kotov’s comments once again underline the importance to safety of architectural decisions in the early phases of a design.
Archive for the ‘Simplicity’ Category
Soviet Buran Shuttle was Safer than American Shuttle
Posted in Complexity, Simplicity, Space exploration safety, System architecting, tagged architectural safety, Buran Shuttle, New Scientist, Oleg Kotov, Shuttle safety on 09/07/2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Altair Lander High Gate
Posted in Risk Perception, Simplicity, Uncertainty, tagged Altair lander, Constellation, high gate, human machine interface, irrational design process, LM, Lunar lander, MIT, NASA, Soviet LK lander on 06/06/2011 | Leave a Comment »
I’m currently reading a report prepared by MIT’s Human and Automation Labs on a conceptual design for a lunar lander human machine interface. As all really interesting papers do it raises as many questions as it answers.
Simple Designs Are Safer … ’cause Karl Popper Says So
Posted in Philosophy, Simplicity, Uncertainty, tagged Complexity, falsification, Popper, Safety, Simplicity on 04/03/2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the tenets of safety engineering is that simple systems are better. Many practical reasons are advanced to justify this assertion, but I’ve always wondered what, if any, theoretical justification was there for such a position.
I tend towards the integrative rather than reductionist view of engineering and science. I'm interested in emergence, networks, relationships and interfaces as they apply to safety.what are the facts?
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