The Space Transportation Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
in Huntsville, Ala., has reached a significant safety goal, logging 3
million work hours without a lost-time injury.
A lost-time injury is defined as an injury causing an employee to miss one
or more days of work.
The last lost-time injury of a civil servant within the Space Transportation
Directorate was in January 2000. The directorate is a key leader in NASA’s
development of advanced space transportation, launch vehicle systems and
in-space propulsion, and provides world-class propulsion and engineering
expertise to NASA’s Space Shuttle program. The organization includes nearly
500 civil service and 177 contractor employees at the Marshall Center,
occupying 53 buildings, including propulsion testing areas, full-size rocket
test stands and numerous laboratories.
“Safety is the top priority within NASA, and I’m glad the Transportation
Directorate and the people who support it realize that with this significant
achievement, we are living examples of that priority,” said Dennis Kross,
director of the Space Transportation Directorate at Marshall. “This is a
real demonstration of our teamwork and commitment as we strive to make this
a safe and healthy environment for everyone. This is just a sign we are
doing our job and doing it well.”
In April 2004, some of the directorate’s employees are scheduled to move
into the Propulsion Research Laboratory, now under construction at the
Marshall Center. The 108,000-square-foot facility will provide office and
laboratory space for propulsion research and small-scale experiments
supporting lower cost, more efficient and safer access to space.
