Spaceflight Participant Safety and Experience

This article presents a case study using Human-Centered Design (HCD) to improve the safety and experience of Spaceflight Participants (SFPs) in commercial space transportation suborbital flight scenarios.

The focus of the study is on the microgravity coasting phase, where the 2 dominant expectations of SFPs involve: (1) a view of the earth from space and (2) a weightlessness experience. Although SFPs enjoy a unique experience, it is important to provide them with appropriate information in a timely fashion, especially when off-nominal events occur.

To gain an insight into how cabin resources could help SFPs perform their required tasks during the microgravity coasting phase, a preliminary experiment was conducted by using a set of low-fidelity prototypes. The findings of the test should be applicable to other suborbital and orbital flight experience designs, such as Blue Origin or The Space Perspective.

This article demonstrates an HCD approach for the enhancement of SFPs’ safety and overall experience. It concludes with a discussion on the limitations of this study and considerations for follow-on design iterations.

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Human Factors in Industry

Whether you are managing a complex network of interconnected businesses or you are managing multiple processes in a small business, once the work involves humans working to create goods and services, then human factors is important to you. Human factors, or ergonomics as it is called in the UK, is the study of applying science to optimise work and make it more efficient.

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Human factors can be applied within many industries and business processes. For example:

  • Recruitment
  • Training andĀ development
  • Manufacturing
  • Product development
  • Customer service
  • Planning, scheduling and supply-chain management
  • Technology integration

Some of the benefits of applying Human Factors to your company include:

  • Higher productivity rates
  • Higher worker morale
  • Less injuries
  • Better overall efficiencies
  • Higher returns on investment
  • More money saved in the long term