Critical space station computers fail
- Filed under: General
- Date: Jun 14,2007
An array of busted computers that control the International Space Station’s orientation and oxygen and water supplies could force the orbiting hotel’s three current residents to either extend their stay or make an emergency departure. The Russian-made computers are critical for sustaining life aboard the station, and while astronauts have a 56-day supply of oxygen remaining and the ability to manually fire the control thrusters, we’ve seen 2001 enough times to know that space and computer malfunctions don’t mix.
So far the cause of the failure is a real head-scratcher for Russian engineers tasked with troubleshooting the problem (where’s Cosmonaut Gates when you need him?), though current suspicions lie with power issues related to the new solar array delivered by Atlantis on this most recent shuttle mission. For real-time updates on this crisis, just grab a telescope and follow along for yourself…
[via engadget]
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2 Responses for "Critical space station computers fail"
Clearly you don’t know a lot about space, the ISS, Clarke’s Oddysey series (1 short story, 4 novels & 2 movies), or the difference between fiction and reality.
Quote: “we’ve seen 2001 enough times to know that space and computer malfunctions don’t mix.”
So, please explain why you bring a psychotic fictional computer from a movie made in 1969 into the picture when discussing computer malfunctions on board the ISS in 2007.
You’d be correct if you’d said “We know from past experience that computer malfunctions (or bad data fed into them) can result in a lost space craft” - but no - you have to bring in some fictional disaster to make the comparison. That’s just lame.
Then you assert that “space and computer malfunctions don’t mix.” Well, that’s just - hmmmm. Let’s put it this way, it’s so bad, you aren’t even wrong.
How can you possibly say that? What possible reasons do you have? Surely you must be aware that computer malfunctions occur in space just about every single day? Orbiters, satellites, rovers, space stations, payloads, exploration vehicles, and missiles - every single one of these suffer problems on a daily basis. This is why they are designed to allow communications, and uploading of fixed code, to solve the computer or hardware malfunctions.
So just where do you get off saying “they don’t mix”? Clearly they mix happily and frequently. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have a space program of any kind, because every hardware or computer failure would inevitably result in catastrophic failure (total loss) of the craft or object.
What IS clear, is that there are circumstances where bad data, and/or bad code and/or hardware failure can result in catastrophic failure, but these instances are extremely rare when considering the number of problems which are successfully diagnosed and fixed remotely.
Then you talk of cosmonaut Gates. WTF is that? You are trying to say that Bill Gates is:
a) Russian
b) a programmer (in Russian)
c) an astronaut
d) capable of fixing a Russian computer system on board a space station.
Clearly (again), Bill Gates would be utterly valueless on board the ISS, because he isn’t Russian, can’t speak Russian (as far as I know anyway), is not a programmer (or hasn’t been for a decade or more, is not an astronaut and couldn’t do a better job of fixing a Russian computer than you or I could.
Basically, this is the worst blog entry I’ve read in months, and I have read some creationist nonsense, some amusingly retarded neoconservative clap-trap, as well as a ton of other crap. But yours takes the cake.
Here’s a tip for you: think 5 times before writing once. Then re-read it, at least 5 itmes. Then post.
BTW: interesting old render situated above the Otago Peninsula in the South Island of New Zealand. I had not seen it before.
FYI: from memory, that’s the way the ISS looked in early 2001; with just Zvezda, Zarya and the Unity Node assembled. I think there were 2 permanent residents at that stage.
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