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NASA Releases Classic Software To Public Domain

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the someone-quick-find-a-moon-lander dept.

xpccx writes in with a bit from NewsBytes, "NASA turned 43 this month and marked the occasion by releasing more than 200 of its scientific and engineering applications for public use. The modular Fortran programs can be modified, compiled and run on most Linux platforms." The software can be found at OpenChannelSoftware.com. At long last I am ready to prepare my own space mission. I wonder if a whiskey barrel is gonna be air tight after I launch it/me into space with a trebuchet. (It's this sort of unconventional thinking that should get me my job at NASA. Or at least get me put to sleep).

6 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds Good by dragons_flight · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The NASA code used on space missions is some of the most throughly debugged anywhere. Can't afford a blue screen of death when lives are actually on the line. Also, you have to be pretty fault tolerant in case cosmic rays or other external phenomena are messing with your data.

    Of course the drawback is that most NASA code is too specialized to be of general interest.

    1. Re:Sounds Good by Detritus · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Congratulations, everything that you posted is wrong.

      See this page for some factual information on the Shuttle's computer systems.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    2. Re:Sounds Good by MentlFlos · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The thing you gotta remember when thinking about these kinds of systems is that they are specialized to do only a few things. Even then, they usually have tons of support hardware to actually do the hard work.

      For example, I have a cisco 2514 router. Its main processor is a 68030 (think Mac LC series or around there). Do you think that this processor does all the work in this device? Nah. It just tells the chips that do the actual work what to do.

      The same idea could go for the computer in your car. If the sensors can only read in X samples per second... why waste the money on a computer that can read in X^2 samples/sec.

      NASA isn't doing the "big dick" contest with computers. They are building these things on a budget to do a task and do it well. If they need a computer that has a 1bit bus and a clock speed of 1hz, then so be it.

      end rant.

  2. System Requirements by jwriney · · Score: 5, Funny

    readme.txt
    ==========
    To run this code, you will need the following:

    * a Fortran compiler
    * a space shuttle

    --riney

    1. Re:System Requirements by Winged+Cat · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't suppose we could somehow convince AOL to ship this code on space shuttles? I don't mean NASA's shuttles, I mean manufacture more until we're sick of seeing them (or, at least, receipts for us to pick them up at the nearest spaceport) in our mailboxes... ;)

  3. Most modern NASA software is open by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Most of the software developed for NASA projects these days is open -- at least, the scientific operations and data analysis software. For example, check out the solarsoft distribution of solar physics analysis software, including planning tools for most existing solar instruments. CVS and Sourceforge it ain't -- but you can get your hands on the actual software that is being used in the SOHO, TRACE, Yohkoh, and HESSI missions (and soon STEREO and Solar-B too).