> Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue.
I have seen articles saying that the Apollo missions were absolutely not that. They were 9 to 5 jobs and managers made sure it stayed 9 to 5. The idea was that so many things could go wrong and they couldn't afford to have exhausted and overworked people screwing up.
It's interesting, because a few weeks ago there was an article here on HN about some engineer recalling how, because of a blunder, they almost fried a multi-million dollar rover 2 weeks before a time-critical launch. And although the author did casually mention in his introduction that he was already working his second 12 hour work shift of the day, without rest, not once was the thought articulated that, maybe, the root of the entire screw-up was that exhausted and overworked people were working double shifts, setting themselves up for failure.
My comments and thoughts on the article were exactly in line with what you read, which is also interesting. Why did NASA in the 60s and 70s think that they could not afford exhausted and overworked people because they would eventually screw up, while JPL (also NASA) in the 2000s thought it was perfectly OK? Some lessons were clearly unlearned through the years.
Apollo historian here, it was sometimes round the clock but even then most stuck to shifts. Check out Apollo 13 at ApolloInRealtime.org. All Mission Control audio is in the app.
The book by Belbin is a management-theory book. The use of "Apollo" in the book is casual and not a rigorous comparison.
From the original book by Belbin:
"The welcome opportunity afforded to us [...] to
form management teams much as we liked for the executive management exercise (EME) gave us the chance to draw up teams that differed from one another in measured mental ability. Teams of clever people were formed and compared with dullard and other teams. [...]
"In the past we had designated companies by letters of the alphabet – Company A
would meet in the room normally occupied by Syndicate A in the usual Henley
experiments, Company B in Syndicate B’s room, and so on. For a change, we
decided to give our companies names instead of the more impersonal letters. The
name said something about the company while still indicating the room in which it should convene.
"For what would hitherto have been our A company we chose the title Apollo
(chosen out of respect for the American lunar triumph at the time) and into this
alpha-type company we placed the members who were high scoring on the
measures of mental ability. The individual scores were of course confidential but there was an immediate reaction from the bulk of course members. The Apollo
company was immediately recognized for what it was and seen as a blatant attempt
by the experimenters to form a company that was bound to win. When very clever
people are put together in a group, there is no disguising the fact.
[...] It seemed fairly obvious that a team of clever people should win in a game that placed an emphasis on cleverness.
"[...] The Apollo team generally finished last.
= = =
Ref: Management Teams - Why They Succeed or Fail, (Belbin, 1981), ISBN: 0-7506-0253-8
Also, very next sentence shows the claim is not even about astronauts, but ground personnel:
> It is based on the (supposed) claim of someone to have played a vital role in the success of NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue. One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme - by making the coffee that kept them awake!
> One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme
The whole programme of 400,000 people. Really? I sort of gave up on TFA at that point. It reminds me of some pop-sci report of an experiment conducted on 'monkeys' that claimed to show some aspect of leadership, where an underling came up with a solution. If the monkeys were any sort of chimp, the underling would have got a bad beating if it seriously undermined an alpha.
Did you really read the TFA? Because that exact sentence is used as an example of a false boast where someone over-stated their importance, yet your comment appears to take it literally. The full paragraph for context:
> The term 'Apollo Syndrome' has also been used to describe the condition where someone has an overly important view of their role within a team. It is based on the (supposed) claim of someone to have played a vital role in the success of NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue. One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme - by making the coffee that kept them awake!
However, it only details the MOCR and some SSRs -- it doesn't reveal much about the hundreds of engineers around the country that were called in for more confusing problems.
In fact, the hard-working culture at SpaceX has me worried that they will slip and make a tragic mistake. (Disclosure: I have no first-hand knowledge of how the work culture there really is, only hearsay.)
The hubris coming with a too-big-to fail mentality is a dangerous thing, if human lives because just another boring parameter or financial trade-off to take into account. Maybe this applies to SpaceX, or maybe it doesn't, and I'm not really interested in filtering through the Musk-fan hysteria to understand what is really happening behind the scenes. But hubris brought us the Challenger disaster, and I hope not all lessons from the past went forgotten..
I mean it makes sense, they were in it for the long haul, building the US' space program, their work to be used and reused for decades to come. Rushing won't achieve anything on those timescales.
I have seen articles saying that the Apollo missions were absolutely not that. They were 9 to 5 jobs and managers made sure it stayed 9 to 5. The idea was that so many things could go wrong and they couldn't afford to have exhausted and overworked people screwing up.