Robert Frost, Instructor and Flight Controller at NASA:
> If you are referring to the call from the Flight Director: “GC, Lock the doors” that is a command that initiates the contingency response to a significant incident, such as the loss of a vehicle. It begins a FREEZE, ISOLATE, AND PROTECT process. The Flight Director would follow up that statement with a call to the team to immediately pull out the contingency section of the Flight Control Operations Handbook to identify specific actions that are to be taken.
> Access to the facility becomes restricted. People that weren’t in the room at the time or aren’t essential to the next steps are not allowed access and the people in the room are restricted from leaving. Communication in and out of the room is restricted. Usage of all devices, both workstations and personal, is restricted. The team is hands-off. Nothing should be done that changes the configuration at the time of the incident. Those are the freeze and isolate steps. Next comes protect. All of the data that was in use must be captured, recorded, and preserved in a static state. Even the trash cans have to be preserved in their state. All of this is because any investigation into the incident will require all of this data.
> Once given permission, the occupants of the room may continue to capture their observations and actions in their console logs.
> It is important to keep the equipment, documentation, and people in a pristine state until it all has been preserved. We don’t want any form of contamination that could be caused by someone bringing in data that wasn’t in the room during the incident into the room or removing data. We don’t want the team’s observation and recording of those observations influenced by communication with people that weren’t there.
> All of the data will be collected and put into secure data containers and taken to a secure vault. Debriefing of the team may then be performed and once a response team has been formed and has begun their work, the Flight Director may release the team.
Yes, and it’s worth pointing out that there had been previous NASA experience with loss of craft and loss of life, so the contingency plan was very real.
You probably aren't actually legally prohibited from leaving. But anyone in the command room leaving after such order is literally unthinkable. This conversation is just weird to me. To earn a spot in that room you absolutely must understand the importance of your job and your place in it, if an order is to stay in and document everything....that's what you do. Whether you could be legally prevented from leaving or not is literally irelevant, outside of some purely academic discussion that is completely pointless.
Agreed--I don't see how someone who has deeply imbibed a serious culture could wonder this. To try to leave on a technicality would be hugely embarrassing and forever mark that person as untrustworthy. Everyone in that room was eager to contribute to the success of future missions and reputation of NASA by making the disaster analysis as thorough and accurate as possible.
Yes, NASA's security officers can legally physically prevent you from leaving. Congress has granted them that power.
Go on law.cornell.edu and dig through the vast provisions of federal security officer power as it pertains to arrest, detainment, use of deadly force, etc.
The first reference ("Arrest authority") clearly states that to arrest someone, a NASA security officer (like any law enforcement officer) needs to have seen them commit an offense (crime). Unless you can point to a federal law that says deserting a civilian post at NASA is a federal offense, there would be no authority to arrest someone who does so. The worst you could do is fire them. (The most credible sounding crime I can think of that might apply here could be something like "obstructing a federal investigation".)
(3) The arresting officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States.
Therefore, if you try to leave after being ordered to stay, during a crisis situation, without a valid reason, you should expect to be arrested and further dealt with.
What federal law says that leaving Mission Control during a crisis is a felony? What law says that you must do what your boss tells you? Law enforcement officers have to enforce laws. They don't just get to decide that people should act in a particular way.
I don't suppose "leaving mission control" in contravention of an order to stay during a crisis is, in and of itself, a felony.
What you're likely to find is an issue is that the security guards at NASA can arrest, if the links above are correct, and you're likely to fund yourself in a predicament if you try to leave and they don't want you to.
I'd imagine working at NASA, and at least some other space launch companies, especially those that provided services to government and defence agencies, come with additional conditions beyond what one might expect stacking shelves at a supermarket.
Being told "you're not free to leave" is rightfully worrying to a lot of people. There are countries where hearing that would be terrifying. What makes the US different is the rule of law, due process, and individual liberties. Asking on what authority the government has to detain you should never be karmic suicide. There are many places where asking that question is truly unthinkable, and they're not places you want to live.
>>What makes the US different is the rule of law, due process, and individual liberties
That reads like complete sarcasm to me.
Anyway, like I said - to me this is on the same level as someone asking if an astronaut on the ISS is "free to leave" and how is this not a citizen's arrest and how somehow this constitutes an abuse of liberties.
This doesn't read like a serious question - more like something a very edgy 14 year old would ask and feel clever.
> Is there some special legislation for it? A citizen's arrest requires an actual crime being observed.
Being prohibited from leaving on pain of adverse employment action is not arrest, and does not require a crime. (That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if NASA did have special statutory authority for more binding orders related to spaceflight related emergency situations, not that they would be likely to need either those or even employment sanctions to secure compliance with control room staff staying put while trying to resolve an emergency incident.)
The possible crime observed was the destruction of a very expensive spacecraft and the deaths of 7 people. One of the reasons to preserve all evidence is to discover if there was any malfeasance somehow involved, however unlikely. Some of the decisions made by NASA management leading up to the Challenger disaster amounted to willful negligence. None of this happened in the control room, but it's possible some logbook documented some communication on a decision from someone that would be relevant to an investigation.
Normally you need to have an honest belief that an individual committed a specific crime in order to be able to detain them, not just that you're aware something happened and someone may be involved.
I think it is a good thing that our legal system can differentiate restraining a person for a temporary stay due to process or safety concerns and arrest. This is very different from the police arresting someone.
When it comes to leaving secure sites you can often be restrained to prevent you from smuggling out sensitive materials which is quite sane and necessary in a number of situations. There are also a plethora of public sites (i.e. government run) that non-enlisted citizens are barred from entering - though that is a bit of a different situation.
The feds have their own security officers that have the authority to detain or arrest on federal property. They have vast Congressionally granted authority to detain or arrest as necessary.
It covers things like assault, resisting, impeding, damage, theft, sabotage, forging, impersonation, destruction of vehicles or other property, communications, explosives, civil disorder and a dozen other categories with sub categories.
They'd easily get you on numerous federal charges if you attempted to flee.
They'll stand in your way. You will stop. Or, you will push past, in which case they will arrest you for interfering with police, or something along those lines.
I assume it's just an implied "if you leave here, your career in spaceflight is over, and you'll probably make the evening news (in a bad way) for doing it." The news coverage will be all about the loss AND the guy who left the secured room afterwards. I bet it was never seriously considered what would happen if anyone disobeyed because it is unthinkable.
It's actually an interesting question to wonder at the legal mechanics behind this.
Apparently it's fashionable to make it look like HN has such a collective boner for "professional integrity" that even asking this question is treated like an insult and downvoted. Repugnant.
Because the question is being asked as if they are being detained because of some wrongdoing whereas the lockdown is to preserve, capture and record everything as is for future investigation of the incident.
It's interesting though the language you choose to use to deride the commenters explaining why the lockdown happens.
Robert Frost, Instructor and Flight Controller at NASA:
> If you are referring to the call from the Flight Director: “GC, Lock the doors” that is a command that initiates the contingency response to a significant incident, such as the loss of a vehicle. It begins a FREEZE, ISOLATE, AND PROTECT process. The Flight Director would follow up that statement with a call to the team to immediately pull out the contingency section of the Flight Control Operations Handbook to identify specific actions that are to be taken.
> Access to the facility becomes restricted. People that weren’t in the room at the time or aren’t essential to the next steps are not allowed access and the people in the room are restricted from leaving. Communication in and out of the room is restricted. Usage of all devices, both workstations and personal, is restricted. The team is hands-off. Nothing should be done that changes the configuration at the time of the incident. Those are the freeze and isolate steps. Next comes protect. All of the data that was in use must be captured, recorded, and preserved in a static state. Even the trash cans have to be preserved in their state. All of this is because any investigation into the incident will require all of this data.
> Once given permission, the occupants of the room may continue to capture their observations and actions in their console logs.
> It is important to keep the equipment, documentation, and people in a pristine state until it all has been preserved. We don’t want any form of contamination that could be caused by someone bringing in data that wasn’t in the room during the incident into the room or removing data. We don’t want the team’s observation and recording of those observations influenced by communication with people that weren’t there.
> All of the data will be collected and put into secure data containers and taken to a secure vault. Debriefing of the team may then be performed and once a response team has been formed and has begun their work, the Flight Director may release the team.