NASA and The Health and Safety Regulations Within The Company

Within this assignment, I will be discussing the company NASA and the health and safety regulations within the company. NASA is the National Aeronautical Space Agency, they are a team of scientists who look at the many options for space exploration, such as general astronomy and botany, they are primarily known for their space explorations, such as the mars rovers, the first human on the moon and their botanist's attempts at exploring the possibilities of colonizing mars. NASA try to include the general public's participation by doing things such as story writing for primary elementary schools to name the rovers. In this assignment, I will also be discussing the differences in the control of hazards between NASA and my place of education. I will be doing this so that I am able to express the importance of regulations in both settings, as well as the difference between the way NASA would deal with a hazard as opposed to my place of education, as NASA is a far larger company with a larger number of regulations that would need to be in place due to the volume of employees, and the severity of injuries.

Legislations are extremely important in a science-based environment, no matter whether it is chemistry, biology, or physics as there are extremely dangerous aspects in each that need strict legislations to ensure the health and safety of both employers and employees. NASA has a large volume of staff, meaning that despite the importance of legislation holds already, not having these measures in place would be detrimental to not only the company but the health and safety of everyone in the vicinity.

There are many different types of legislation in place, the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) is essential to this company as due to the environment in which NASA need their employees to work in, it is essential that proper health and safety are followed out to ensure the utmost health, safety, and welfare of their staff. The health and safety act defines the fundamental structure for the regulation, encouragement, and enforcement of safety, health, and welfare in the workplace. However, this legislation is British, created by the British parliament, the USA has a similar act called the occupational safety and health act which would be more applicable due to NASA being an American company, however, the fundamentals of both legislations are the same.

Due to NASA using mass amounts of electricity, it is important that there is legislation to ensure the safety of everyone in the vicinity. NASA has a designated electrical safety working group to ensure that all members of staff are both safe and updated individually depending on the specific area within the facility. An Electricity at Work Regulations act is put in place to ensure the safety of all staff, as the potential risks of electricity can be fatal.

NASA has put in place a hearing conservation program that had established that a noise level that exceeds a specific level, is too much for the general workplace, and is established as a hazard area therefore it is essential for employees to be provided with ear protection if they may need to work in an environment in which noise levels do exceed this level.

Due to the potential risks of manual handling employers are required to carry out regular risk assessments on every manual handling task, to ensure that all risks and hazards are minimized. Employees have a duty to ensure reasonable care for their own health, but also to ensure their actions won't directly affect the health of their co-workers. These regulations come under both the Health and Safety at Work act and the Manual Handling Regulations act.

The Control of Major Accident Hazards regulation aims to eradicate, reduce, treat, and regulate the effects of major accidents in the workplace that can cause major harm to workers and the environment.