Skylab 4

"The Skylab 4 experience raises a number of issues. The first is identifying an optimal balance between work and nonwork activities for missions of varying lengths. To reduce the threat of overprogramming, mission planners and managers, first, might maintain a high degree of sensitivity to the socioemotional requirements of prolonged space flights. Second, planners and managers might incorporate principles or organizational self-design by further involving experienced astronauts in the planning of tasks and activities and by incorporating scheduling flexibility so that crews can readily modify their timetables on the basis of conditions encountered in space. Third, it might prove useful to conduct a path analysis of attitudes toward supplies, equipment, and living conditions on the one hand, and attitudes toward mission planners and managers on the other. It is not clear whether opinions regarding supplies and equipment are causes of, or symptoms of, spacecrew/mission-control conflicts."

"We swallowed a lot of problems for a lot of days because we were reluctant to admit publicly that we were not getting things done right. That's ridiculous, [but] that's human behavior."