NASA Chair Accident Investigation Board (CAIB)

On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:
No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If
someone suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned
about this one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA
as an organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the
earlier incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of
examination, the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal
cost, which probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this model.

Sylvia.

On Jul 15, 7:45*am, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:

No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If
someone suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned
about this one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA
as an organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the
earlier incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of
examination, the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal
cost, which probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this model.

Sylvia.

it would be far more appropiate for the manufacturer of the chair to
do the analysis since ultimately they built the faulty product and are
at risk from lawsuits.

On 15/07/2011 9:48 PM, bob haller wrote:
On Jul 15, 7:45 am, Sylvia wrote:
On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:

No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If
someone suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned
about this one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA
as an organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the
earlier incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of
examination, the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal
cost, which probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this model.

Sylvia.

it would be far more appropiate for the manufacturer of the chair to
do the analysis since ultimately they built the faulty product and are
at risk from lawsuits.


Yes, but both we and NASA know that they're not going to do that in
respect of 15 year old chair, and NASA would not be able to escape
liability just because there's someone else who could also be blamed.

Sylvia.

On Jul 15, 4:45*am, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:

No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If
someone suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned
about this one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA
as an organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the
earlier incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of
examination, the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal
cost, which probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this model.

Sylvia.

Folks used to be smart enough to know long before a chair was going to
fail. Nowadays, it seems top level engineers don't have a clue until
it's too late.

Excessive over-eating combined with gravity seems to be a much greater
problem.

I'm still using chairs made in the 50s, so why is our NASA breaking
spendy chairs that cost upwards of a hundred times more than I paid
for my Boeing surplus chair?

http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”

On Jul 15, 4:48*am, bob haller wrote:
On Jul 15, 7:45*am, Sylvia Else wrote:









On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:

No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair..
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If
someone suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned
about this one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA
as an organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the
earlier incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of
examination, the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal
cost, which probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this model.

Sylvia.

it would be far more appropiate for the manufacturer of the chair to
do the analysis since ultimately they built the faulty product and are
at risk from lawsuits.

What the hell are these highly paid and obviously overweight
individuals doing just sitting around?

On 15/07/2011 10:51 PM, Brad Guth wrote:
On Jul 15, 4:45 am, Sylvia wrote:
On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:

No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If
someone suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned
about this one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA
as an organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the
earlier incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of
examination, the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal
cost, which probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this model.

Sylvia.

Folks used to be smart enough to know long before a chair was going to
fail. Nowadays, it seems top level engineers don't have a clue until
it's too late.

While the old style wooden chair usually gave some forewarning, I doubt
that was always true.

The modern swivel office chair has a single point of failure, as the
incident demonstrates. Unless people are in the habit of inspecting such
chairs, and know what to look for, there's little to indicate impending
failure. One moment it seems OK, and the next it's collapsed.


Excessive over-eating combined with gravity seems to be a much greater
problem.

Fatigue failures can occur without overloading.


I'm still using chairs made in the 50s, so why is our NASA breaking
spendy chairs that cost upwards of a hundred times more than I paid
for my Boeing surplus chair?

Was there any mention of the cost?

Sylvia.

The modern swivel office chair has a single point of failure, as the
incident demonstrates. Unless people are in the habit of inspecting such
chairs, and know what to look for, there's little to indicate impending
failure. One moment it seems OK, and the next it's collapsed.


pass federal law to prevent sngle point failure

"Sylvia Else" wrote in message
...
On 15/07/2011 8:11 PM, Pat Flannery wrote:
No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Pat

It seems superficially silly. But clearly people can be badly hurt if
their chair fails under them in an office environment with sharp corners
and other hazards. The USA is a particularly litigious society. If someone
suffered injury in a subsequent similar event, and then learned about this
one, they might, not entirely unreasonably, ask whether NASA as an
organisation ought to have known better than to assume that the earlier
incident was a one-off freak event.

Given that NASA has inhouse resources for doing this kind of examination,
the expense of getting it done would have been the marginal cost, which
probably isn't very much.

And now they know that they need to examine all of the chairs of this
model.



Well it was probably a joke. Here's a study from Scientific American
on how long it would take the Large Hadron Collider to defrost a pizza.
Not very long, it turns out~

http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...o-d-2008-09-10





Sylvia.