A New Documentation System for the Mississippi Test Facility

Lost--lost in a maze — some of the finest technical minds in the space program hampered and confused by the labrinyth of disorganized, unreliable documentation. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as a vital part of its Apollo Program mission of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely within this decade, authorized the construction of the Mississippi Test Facility (MTF). This facility was designed to captive test fire the first and second stages of the Apollo moon rocket--the Saturn V. The construction and subsequent activation of MTF was accomplished thru the Corps of Engineers, who, as NASA\u27s prime contracting agency, subcontracted the design, construction and installation with various firms. Each contract was made to accomplish a specific task and the documentation generated was restricted to reflect only the contract task. The acres of swampland have now disappeared 0 The scars of the bulldozers have become roads and canals, the gaping holes left by the giant shovels are filled with massive structures of concrete and steel--MTF is operational. We now examine the documentation evolved by the over sixty separate, independent contractors involved, for adaptation to the new role of MTF as an operational facility. We find the twelve thousand facility and technical systems drawings, perfectly suitable for construction and installation, unable to support the overall site-wide systems operations, and with no traceability between interfacing contracts. To compound these problems the Facility has seen many changes during activation that were never recorded on the drawings