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

Transmeta/FPGA?

[larien]

Couldn't Transmeta chips (which are programmable to a degree) or FPGA's be an answer in the longer term? Obviously, a lot of the reason for requiring 8086 chips is down to form factor etc, but couldn't converters be made to help out?

Re:Transmeta/FPGA?

[ender81b]

I believe the real reason NASA is looking for 8086 chips and not changing is simple - they work. Why change?

Also, don't forget that in space the chips need to be hardened against EM raditation of all kinds. It is apparently very difficult to do on modern chips, slightly easier on old ones. In the long run (next shuttle) they might use Transmeta but... if it ain't broke don't fix it. A proven technology that works is just fine.

Is it just me or isn't it kindof sad that the damm shuttle can run on a couple (3 actually I think) 8086 put to run fscking win2000 i need about 100x the processing power...

Re:It's NASA's problem now...

[swb]

Aren't most mission-critical business systems already taking this into account?

We're running an HP3000 running MPE here. Most of the applications running on it are running code nearly 30 years old. HP is phasing out the 3000, but I'm guessing that the platform will remain runnable for at least another 10 years (5 years of legacy support from HP, and 3rd party beyond that).

I agree with you the breakneck pace of change is kind of nutty, but I don't think the impact is as dire as you claim outside the PC arena.

Plus, some of the changes being made are more than cosmetic Mhz changes -- the increased processing power brings real new functionality. If you don't upgrade, your competitors might, leaving you behind in terms of performance and functionality.

Check with IBM...

[warpSpeed]

They could get an IBM Mainframe running Linux , then partition it out to 40,000 virtual instances, and have each one running Bochs to emulate all the 8086 chips they need.

You know, it would probably still be cheaper then maintining what they have now in the way of hardware.

Problem is that they would need a third booster to get it and the power plant off the ground....

Re:I find this hard to believe...

[aallan]

So either the contract has expired and the shuttles have exceeded their lifespan, or Intel has broken its contract.

The the "design lifetime" of the shuttle was around 100 flights. Based on this the most of the shuttles have only burned a quarter to a third of their design lifetimes.

On the other hand, the shuttles have been flying for over 20 years, the first flight was in 1981. NASA was, initally at least, anticipating a much higher number of flights per year, in theory this means that they were really expecting to take them out of service during the early to mid-nineties. I remember hearing 15 years as being the expected design lifetime back in the '80's.

I guess you take their pick, depending on how you want to look at it, they're only a quarter of the way through their design lifetime, or they're outlived their design lifetime by five years (possibly more).

Al.