In 1942, a Boston (USA) nightclub called “Coconut Grove” had a terrible fire in which over 400 people died. A simple design flaw in the building led to the tragic loss of life. After the fire a law was passed to change the one simple thing that had caused the fire. Strangely, NASA didn’t take this into account in the early Mercury, Gemini and early Apollo capsule designs. This led to the death of 3 astronauts in Apollo 1. The astronauts were burnt to death because the capsule had the same design flaw as the Boston nightclub. The fire was worse because the atmosphere in the capsule was 100% oxygen.

Solving problems involves having lots of different ways to choose from – the more ideas the better. Having lots of ideas helps us to select the best solution! 1.Work in a pair 2.Write down as many possible solutions as you can (10+) 3.Then pick the top 3 ideas that are better than the rest 4.Tally up the most common answers – Mr. S will do this! 5.Look at some of the unusual answers... 6.Look at the situations and think about how each one might help to explain the problem. What was the design flaw in the nightclub and in space capsules? How do you think NASA made space capsules safer?

GrissomWhiteChaffee

Watch the video about a journey to Mars. There will be some questions that you will need to answer at the end. Make notes. Space Odyssey – voyage to the planets

What’s the point of sending a mission to Mars? What are the main challenges that a mission to Mars would present for humans? How would NASA overcome these challenges? What would astronauts do on Mars?