NASA Parts Scroungers Resort To eBay For Parts

beggs writes: "The New York Times is running this article about NASA using ebay and other web resources to find for sale stock piles of old hardware it needs to keep the Space Shuttle fleet up and running -- things like 8086 chips from pre-PC days!" Come to think of it, this might be a better way to take care of most NASA bidding anyhow.

Comments

It's NASA's problem now...

[Matt2000]

...but it'll increasingly be all of our problems in the future. A lot of really smart people are worried about the computer industry's quick pace and are worried that it's unsustainable. If I have a computer that I bought 15 years ago that's running a critical function in my workplace, it quickly becomes more expensive (in hardware costs) to support that piece of equipment than it does to buy a whole new machine. That's fine except that we then need to convert all the data over to new formats and operating systems, interface all our surrounding systems with the new system and generally spend a bunch of time and money replicating the functions of the old machine.

Sure, it's rarely ever that simple a scenario, but the computer industry should spend a bit more time thinking about sustainable growth rather than the next 300 Mhz of CPU performance.

It's a damn shame.

[austus]

Go ahead an mod me down because this is basically an emotional outburst, but I really think it is completely sad that society lacks the collective intelligence to see how important organizations such as NASA really are. The possibility of impact by an asteroid or other large space object alone justifies financing NASA adequately.

Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 2040,

[Mordant]

it seems like we can't make any cool, upgradeable large-scale systems, anymore.

What did we do when we needed large, mobile cruise-missile & artillery platforms? Why, we loaded up then-forty-year-old Iowa-class battleships, ships so old that it was tough finding personnel who knew how to work the guns!

The shuttle uses early-70s technology. The B-52, the first prototype of which flew in 1949 (!), is still our #1 conventional heavy bomber, and is a testament to forward-thinking in terms of modularity. But it seems that the trend is towards more monolithic, use-it-and-then-throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one systems.

Which is great for the suppliers, but not so great for the consumers (and in the case of NASA and DoD, the taxpayers).

I can generally get about 2 years of useful life out of a desktop PC, perhaps upgrading the RAM, video adaptor and CD/DVD/latest-useful-removeable-media drive along the way. I can get about 18 months of use out of a laptop, upgrading the RAM at some point. I can get 3-5 years out of a car, a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch or a gun.

But the design principles I see in operation today are very much oriented towards disposability. Which is a bit of a problem when we're talking about multibillion-dollar systems.

What's the answer? For space, let private enterprise develop their own, market-driven Pull out of the Outer Space Treaty (http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/spa ce1.htmlmodel. ), and let's start mining those asteroids! NASA can do science, while the Solar System is pioneered by those imbued with that most useful of human motivations - pure, unadulterated greed.

For defense, I'm not so sure. The bureaucracy is so bloated and elephantine, and so many different factions are constantly trying to keep their rice-bowls from being broken, I'm unsure -what- it would take to reform their procurement methodologies. If September 11th isn't enough of a wakeup call that we need to move both quicker and smarter, I don't know what would serve.

Re:Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 20

[GigsVT]

I can generally get about 2 years of useful life out of a desktop PC, perhaps upgrading the RAM, video adaptor and CD/DVD/latest-useful-removeable-media drive along the way. I can get about 18 months of use out of a laptop, upgrading the RAM at some point. I can get 3-5 years out of a car, a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch or a gun.

Tsk Tsk, you propose a radical answer, when your "question" is fundamentally flawed.

I buy a gun, lets say a .38 caliber relvolver. A fine piece of craftsmanship. It will be working long after I am rotting in the ground somewhere if I take care of it. It does one thing, it shoots little chunks of hot lead at subsonic speeds.

If I buy a computer, and I keep using the same software that came out designed for said computer, and I take care of it, I don't keep it in humid environments, I don't let it overheat, etc, then I'm sure it will last long after I am dead too.

It's only because you want to run new, bloated software, designed for new, bloated computers, that you have to upgrade so often.

It's like trying to shoot 357 magnums out of your 38. Sure, they fit in the chamber, but that isn't the gun that bullet is designed for. Don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

Re:Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 20

[Leven Valera]

The B-52, the first prototype of which flew in 1949 (!), is still our #1 conventional heavy bomber, and is a testament to forward-thinking in terms of modularity. But it seems that the trend is towards more monolithic, use-it-and-then-throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one systems.

One of my coworkers was a crew chief in the early 90's for a B-52 that was built in 1962. He said, even though the plane may be fourty years old, so many parts (nose, wings, tail, fuselage sections, navcomp, weapons, et cetera) have been replaced over time that the build date of the plane is more like 1980-something.

Cheers,
LV

Re:Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 20

[Billly Gates]

I disagree.

B-52's did a fine job in the gulf war of 1991 and kosov. Why upgrade? I believe the b-52 bombers and the more modern aircrafts still use the same old early 20th century technology. They are more expensive but only slightly more efficient. Something newer may not be a whole lot better but would cost alot more. As a taxpayer I do not want a more modern jet. I pay too much as it is for military operations and for more b-52's. The b-52 was made to be modular and upgradable. You can just upgrade the computers and put more modern gps guided missiles on them as tine goes on. The stealth jets just use some fancy materials and designs to knock radar beams away from it but its still based on the same concept.

Re:The reason for open protocols

[Tokerat]

The real problem with this is that is just now, within say the last 5 years or so, becomming a common practice. Sure, we've had open protocols for many more years than that, but c'mon, what about all the businesses who where convinced by vendors that their proprietary stuff was "more well suited for your particular application"? They're gonna have a hell of a time.

I cite as an example the local hospital here about 5-6 years ago began updating their old VAX-style mainfame and VT100 terminals (from probably the 70s sometime) to shiny "new" Windows 95 and NT machines. They spent about $1 million on it, incuding new networking and employee training. A few weeks ago, they upgraded again, for a cost of $3 million this time, to another Windows NT/XP solution, again with training for fewer people this time and they had to hire about 30 people to trnasfer all records form the old system to the new one because the new system didn't use any standards. Wouldn't it be easier to have a server with some flavor of SQL (Oracle to keep the suits happy?) and a few programmers to create and maintain a front-end app that would work well on whatever types of PCs the hospital uses (their quite partial to IBM)? I'm sure it would save a ton of money in the long run since they seem to liek to upgrade every few years. If the data just worked or the server/clients could be upgraded seperately as needed, they' woudl save millions in efficiency.

Of course, that's money that the medical computing systems' vendors dont' get to make. So it'll never happen. Methinks it's unfortunate how capitalism and technological advances have a tendancy to choke each other to death.

Re:Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 20

[ncc74656]

One of my coworkers was a crew chief in the early 90's for a B-52 that was built in 1962. He said, even though the plane may be fourty years old, so many parts (nose, wings, tail, fuselage sections, navcomp, weapons, et cetera) have been replaced over time that the build date of the plane is more like 1980-something.

Every few years, they basically take the plane apart and put it together. Since many of the parts are no longer available from the original manufacturers, the facility that does this work has the ability to build pretty much any needed replacement part from scratch by measuring/analyzing/reverse-engineering the originals. (There was a story linked by /. a few months ago about the Air Force sending a B-52H to OCALC to be refitted and turned over to NASA to replace its B-52B launch aircraft, but I can't seem to locate it.)