I’ve Been Reading…
Lost Moon. The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13: Jim Lovell & Jeffery Kluger (1994: p. 351) Houghton Mifflin. NY.
Put In
Not quite, but close enough! Nearly, but it will do! Common expressions to excuse error or even tolerate slight deviance from an expected norm or acceptance of subtle aberrations of a slipped standard. All very good if we detect them and adjust back on course: but what if we do not detect them, or worse, accept them? What if those drifts keep increasing?
Work Through
After successfully returning the three astronauts from the failed Apollo 13 moon-mission, a full enquiry was held into causes: immediate, underlying and root. From large liabilities such as the faulty Oxygen tank that exploded – which was not replaced after it was dropped and consequently damaged the internal piping system – to failing to account for thermostats and gauges that were not compatible with a replacement ‘cryogenic heating system’ that was installed – leaving instruments that could not read, let alone deal with, the escalated aberrations later encountered.
The last puzzle solved was what had caused a “shallowing” of the trajectory on the last leg home. Despite carefully made specific and detailed adjustments to this trajectory, the crew found that, just before entering Earth’s atmosphere, it had drifted into a shallow approach that, if continued, would cause the Odyssey – the cone shaped Command Module – to bounce off and be flung back into space for ever more.
Why had it drifted off course despite the previous mathematical wizardry and finely made manual adjustments that set them previously on a perfect line home?
Most of this “home run” was made sat in the lander part of the space-craft called the Aquarius. Because of the massive damage done to the rest of the craft – the Service Module –the crew had to cohabit in, and manoeuvre through space from, the cramped little spider-shaped ship. Unbeknownst to all, however, it had been “steadily pushing itself off course”.
This “drift” had initially been blamed on venting oxygen: “some undetected leak from a damaged tank or pipe” spewing periodic puffs of air into space pushing the craft off-course.
Instead, it was not great guffs of O2, but little leaks of H2O. They discovered that tiny “wisps of steam were wafting from the cooling system… tendrils of vapour …emitted as it carried excess heat out into space”.
Such subtle slips of seeping steam were expected, sure, but they “had never disturbed a trajectory before.” This was, however, “only because the lander was typically not powered up until it was ready to separate from the mother-ship and descend to the moon surface… For such a short-haul trip, the invisible plume of steam would not be strong enough to nudge the lander in any one direction” Kluger tells us.
Now that the lander was playing life-boat to the three astronauts, it had been powered up for a much longer time and over a much longer distance than ever expected or anticipated.
“Over the course of a slow 240,000 mile glide back to Earth, the almost unmeasurable thrust would be more than enough to alter the spacecraft’s flight path, pushing it out of its re-entry corridor altogether.” The accumulated drift, over an extend period of time and a vast distance, had become fatal.
Take Away
A favourite concept of mine is the “deviational drift” – what others call “normalising deviation” or behaviour migration”.
This is when we slightly deviate from a standard and accept it. This slipped “standard” then becomes the new line from which we measure the next. Then, if there is another drift, it will be from that slipped line – not the first – thus doubling the drift from the original. If this continues, the drift escalates into a wide chasm, so far form the original standard that it becomes unrecognisable and so deviant that it is not fit for purpose.
Deviational drift is a dangerous action! The most subtle of slips can, over time and distance, add up to the greatest of gulfs.
We all are prone to dropping our standards now and then, or producing work lower than the expected quality on occasion. Catching and correcting it early is the key to preservation. Even a wisp of wandering off course, while it may appear “pedantic” at the time, needs readjustment to save potential chasms opening up that may cause us to bounce off – be rejected from – our own atmosphere into the cold depths of lifeless space.
Set the standard and hold to the standard. Correct and re-align as soon as possible. The longer we let it slide the further we stray from what is acceptable and, rather than standing up and standing out, we risk sliding down and shooting off into obscurity.
Live | Learn | Lead
