Dorian Shainin - NASA/Apollo 13

NASA/Apollo 13

During the 1960s Shainin worked for Grumman Aerospace as a reliability consultant for NASA's Apollo Lunar Module. In order to ensure a statistical margin of safety, Shainin developed a completely new approach to reliability assessment, which was applied to the empirical testing of Grumman's Lunar Module prototype components and systems. Shainin’s approach to reliability testing was crucial to Grumman’s bid in the development of the Lunar Module. The effectiveness of his approach was demonstrated by zero failures in eleven manned missions, six of which featured moon landings. When the command module became uninhabitable during the failed Apollo 13 mission, the Lunar Module became the lifeboat that brought the Apollo 13 astronauts to lunar orbit and back to Earth.

During the years that Shainin served as a reliability consultant for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, he worked on the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell that powered Apollo environmental life support in addition to the RL-10 cryogenic liquid rocket engine. The RL-10 soon became America's most reliable space engine, at one point logging 128 ignitions in space without a single failure.