Working Under Pressure

I just landed my eyes on an MSNBC article about NASA : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11712516/
Especially, the last part of it which says
“After a ceiling lamp broke, showering glass onto the shuttle, workers used a boom-mounted platform to position themselves for cleaning up the debris. However, while moving into position, the edge of the work platform made contact with the shuttle’s robot arm, which is stowed along the left sill of the long payload bay.
Inspections are now under way to verify that no mechanical damage was inflicted on the arm or on the special sensors that have been installed for testing on the next mission. MSNBC.com has been told privately that such operator errors seem to have become more frequent in recent weeks as workers do double-shifts to meet the schedule for launch processing.”

This somehow reminds me of the Hubble Space Telescope project. People, working hard to beat deadlines and ridiculous budgets, did similar things on the Hubble project and almost ruined the telescope’s mirror at least a couple of times.