JSC Vs JPL Culture
#NASA JSC doesn't like mission controllers jumping/clapping in #TheMartian Hmm -thats what's cool about JPL missions pic.twitter.com/yPtaroTtVP
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) September 23, 2015
#NASA JSC doesn't like mission controllers jumping/clapping in #TheMartian Hmm -thats what's cool about JPL missions pic.twitter.com/yPtaroTtVP
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) September 23, 2015
Jpl is clapping about a landing that happened 24 minutes ago on mars. JSC is focused on real time data with lives on the line. Clapping during the resupply launch (that ends up failing) was totally unrealistic for Houston as the flight was on going and flight controllers would all be looking at their data not just the one guy noticing the shimmy.
I love JSC guys who just come up with these excuses. FWIW contrary to the JSC mindset, the JPL folks are all poised for their own contingencies – ones hampered by light travel times – in case something did not go right on Mars. And they have to be ready to implement them just as promptly and professionally as the stoic guys wearing ties at JSC.
I’m confused. They celebrate. Granted it was when it was all over.
This is now frowned upon – as is smoking cigars.
Smoking cigars is frowned on almost everywhere…
we still celebrate when the crew has landed safely not at mid points like a resupply launch or rescue attempt. until the crew is safely home and out of the vehicle it is all business.
Yea because that is what management and JSC culture tells you to do.
You must have never been to a splashdown/landing party then. We did celebrate. Trust me on that one. But again, it is an OPERATIONAL mindset. Just because we didnt hoot and holler like the guys at JPL doesnt make it wrong. Your criticsm is kind of, well, dumb here.
If I had been working on something for 3 years, then watched and waited for another 3 years…Id go berserk too when it was successful. What do you dislike so much about JSC? Somebody steal your girl or something?
If staying calm and collected
until the mission is over because at any moment our actions could have the
ultimate consequences is the wrong culture, I don’t want to be right.
Ah, got it. Well, it shouldn’t be. Heck, if they land someone on Mars, I’d say they can smoke whatever they want. 🙂
When we land on Mars we’ll be at JPL.
That is too bad…
Here we go with this again.
Although I’ve always looked at it like I was taught playing football: Act like you’ve been there before. But that’s me…
Now working on the unmanned side of the camp after years on Shuttle, I do have a new appreciation for what the JPL guys go through. These loooooong mission planning timelines as compared to manned missions make for a lot of work being put in over periods of YEARS as compared to Shuttle. So I understand the jubilation when YEARS of work pays off. Hell, for some of the project scientists, it might be the payoff over a career.
So, maybe there is no right or wrong culture. The JSC guys act like they’ve been there before because THEY HAVE. Operational mindset. Do ATCs clap every time they land an airplane?
For the JPL guys, its right for them because, given the failure rate of things that go to Mars, they jump for joy and hoot and holler when it goes right.
The problem comes when someone at HQ or PAO thinks that one culture is somehow better than the other.
“Do ATCs clap every time they land an airplane?”
Don’t know about ATCs, but I flew Ryan Air last summer on a European vacation, and they did have an automatic jingle at the end of each flight celebrating an on-time landing.
Ryan Air? Id clap too…
Like some of the other comments I don’t think either is wrong, they each are appropriate for what they do. I know one thing, if I were an astronaut and after the shuttle having landed a dozen times or so, the MCC were still erupting like they did after the Apollo 11 landing, I would not be too excited about flying the next mission.
The alternative of course is that each culture is equally valid for its particular mission type.
except that JSC’s mission was manufactured out of politics, boondogles, and porkbarrel. The same mission could have been and was handled by MSFC and KSC
Last flight mission I was on, we broke out the cigars and the whiskey on launch, Mad Men style! JPL, as it would happen.
Keith, JSC just needs to have a set up like SpaceX Hawthorne. That way, if you are in the mood to see some clapping/cheering, you look at the crowd of employees outside of the glass cage of the mission control. And if you are in the mood to see the more stoic faces of an ongoing mission, look at the folks within the glass cage.
It may (or may not be, what do I know having never been there) hard for those at the consoles to contain their excitement if and when they see on the screen that a 1st stage has in fact stuck the landing on the barge but I could understand NASA being a little peeved if it seems to distract anyone in the slightest during a resupply mission and Dragon still needs to get to orbit at that point.
Clapping and celebrating is not “what’s cool” about these missions. The public at times also ridicules the display of brainy folks not landing their high fives (watch the other person’s elbow people!). And one time a guy with a faux-hawk struck a chord with the world, great. But we don’t want manufactured celebration. That would be awful. Let these professionals, who are well aware of it not being over till it’s over (RIP Yogi), do what comes naturally.
I for one have always been a fan of the Admiral Ackbar “I can relax now” method of triumphant expression.
Here here!
Did this debate started from what was portrayed in “The Martian?” (I haven’t seen the movie yet or keep up on all the gossip). I can see cheering at JPL when milestones such as a launch (“Yeah! After years of battling budgets and engineering development, we’re finally going someplace!”) or a landing/flyby/orbit of a planet (phew! We hit that milestone), then followed by months of tedious data analysis. Unlike JSC I can see the cheering after a successful landing of a manned spacecraft (it has been years since it happened exception Soyuz). I can see moments of clapping on key points in the mission (they didn’t cheer on Apollo 11 landing, MOCR people began to breath again after a hair raising lunar landing). But there are so many opportunities to lose a crew until they are safely out of the vehicle and breathing well on earth. That’s when JSC people can totally let loose (and perhaps some old guys should smuggle in some cigars).