The Human Element

Abstract

When Bob Cabana made that statement some months prior to the launch of the first ISS assembly mission, it came after a long gestation of not only his crew’s mission training profile but also familiarity with both their own payload and Zarya, the Russian element they were to link up with in space. The crew had been named in August 1996 and their mission was delayed by almost a year. There comes a point in the training cycle where it becomes more difficult to maintain the ‘keen edge’ required to fly the mission before re-training becomes necessary. Each flight crew hopes that their training reaches a peak just prior to their embarking on the mission for which they have trained. In some cases the time between selection and flight can be short, but just occasionally it can be drawn out, often by several months but sometimes by years. Finding the balance in the training of a crew to maintain a high level of readiness amidst delays, setbacks and cancellations can be tricky. In the face of protracted delays, decisions have to be made about whether a crew should be kept intact, or split up and its individual members reassigned.

I have an extremely excited crew that is very well trained, and we are anxious to go… We’ve reached that point [that] this is going to happen, the crew is really getting focused and psyched to go do this, and we’re ready.

Robert D. Cabana, Commander STS-88 (ISS Assembly Mission 2A) during a pre-flight interview