Posts: 65 From: North Smithfield, RI USA Registered: Aug 2003
posted 11-06-2017 03:38 PM
Are Manned Flight Awareness (MFA) awards different than Space Flight Awareness (SFA) awards? Or is SFA just a politically correct version of MFA?
If it is a replacement, when was the SFA first used?
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 42981 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 11-06-2017 09:03 PM
Manned Flight Awareness, and later Space Flight Awareness, refer to the name of the NASA office charged with improving employee (and contractor) awareness on the importance of their role in promoting safety, quality and mission success. The current version of the office's mission statement reads:
To ensure that each and every employee involved in human space flight is aware of the importance of their role in promoting astronaut safety and mission success in the critical, challenging task of flying humans in the hostile environment of space by communicating and educating the Government/industry workforce about human space flight.
The program was founded in 1963 as the Manned Flight Awareness Office. I believe it became the Space Flight Awareness Office around the time of STS-26 returning the space shuttle fleet to service in 1988, but I could be mistaken.