Houston, We Have a Software Problem

An anonymous reader writes "The computer system that launches the Space Shuttle is an old, but important, computer system. It is built from mid 70's technology and features SSI chips like 7400's...which are getting hard to find. It has 64k of memory and no room to repair any software bugs. NASA started the CLCS project in 1996 which uses state of the art computer languages, OO methodologies, and hardware. Everything that you could actually hire people off the street for. However, NASA is in a budget crunch with the Space Station cost overruns. It is looking to trim costs to keep the Space Station going. There are stories about CLCS getting cancelled here and these guys say its already cancelled."

Comments

It has 64k of memory

[Semi-Psychic Nathan]

But I thought 64k should be enough for anybody...

Re:It has 64k of memory

[inteller]

I want to add that is hand strung memory....my old professor did the programming work for it (as part of a team with IBM)

Re:It has 64k of memory

[jdreed1024]

But I thought 64k should be enough for anybody...

That's 640k that's supposed to be enough for anybody.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Anonymous Coward]

64K... Hmmm... yeah, I think my watch has about that.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Anonymous Coward]

and that was only for the current software available at that time

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1st post got it right, but people mod up the 4th post. Go figure.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Tablizer]

(* I want to add that is hand strung memory.... *)

You don't mean the kind that looks like jillions of tiny tires (or black donuts) intersecting with the wires of a chain-link fence, are you?

I thot that ended in the late 60's.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[cburley]

You don't mean the kind that looks like jillions of tiny tires (or black donuts) intersecting with the wires of a chain-link fence, are you?

I thot that ended in the late 60's.

Nope; I heard it was possible to get a job as a "core-stringer", or whatever they called it, at a Digital Equipment Corporation plant in a Boston suburb around the mid-'70s.

(Considering applying for it myself, and maybe I did, but can't recall for sure. Not really the kind of work I'm good at, though, so it was just as well.)

Re:It has 64k of memory

[henley]

You don't mean the kind that looks like jillions of tiny tires (or black donuts) intersecting with the wires of a chain-link fence, are you?

Yes, he does mean Core Memory, and yes, the AP-101 as flown in the Shuttle from mid-70s through to mid-90s did indeed use Core memory.

Indeed, the upgrade to the AP-101s with (I think) static-column RAM took so long because Core memory has the lovely property of retaining information even when the power dies - a key factor, sadly, in the ability to retrieve information from Challenger's onboard computers after the 1986 crash. Another key factor is that Core memory is remarkably resilient to bit-flipping caused by cosmic rays and other radiation (events known as "SEUs" or "Single Event Upsets").

All of which meant that it was a major project just to replace that memory with more modern RAM. And it's not just a couple' sticks of SDRAM either - most of the space-savings you'd expect from replacing bulky core with nice compact RAM chips is taken up with additional hardware to a) provide sufficient power support to retain memory in the event of main power failure b) continually scan through memory doing parity checks to detect and correct for SEUs...

Don't diss Core, man...

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Tablizer]

the upgrade to the AP-101s with (I think) static-column RAM took so long because Core memory has the lovely property of retaining information even when the power dies.....Another key factor is that Core memory is remarkably resilient to bit-flipping caused by cosmic rays and other radiation

70's computers seem much more radiation friendly than the newer stuff. It is harder to take advantage of Moores Law on spacecraft due to radiation out there, especially when visiting gas giants like Jupiter that are swarming with radiation. (Not likely the shuttles will be visiting Jupiter anytime soon, though.)

Re:It has 64k of memory

[ih8apple]

Yes, he does mean Core Memory, and yes, the AP-101 as flown in the Shuttle from mid-70s through to mid-90s did indeed use Core memory. That's a pretty funny statement, considering the first shuttle didn't launch until 1981. And besides, the computers in spacecraft have always been at least ten years old so they used 70s computers in the 80s, 80s computers in the 90s, etc.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[ih8apple]

Yes, he does mean Core Memory, and yes, the AP-101 as flown in the Shuttle from mid-70s through to mid-90s did indeed use Core memory.

That's a pretty funny statement, considering the first shuttle didn't launch until 1981. And besides, the computers in spacecraft have always been at least ten years old so they used 70s computers in the 80s, 80s computers in the 90s, etc.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[henley]

That's a pretty funny statement, considering the first shuttle didn't launch until 1981 [nasa.gov].

I'm well aware that Columbia's first flight was in 1981, since I distinctly remember watching at least 2 launch attempts on TV, the worries over the missing tiles on the OMS pods, and the subsequent safe landing at Edwards. I was 10, not that that should make a blind difference to anyone, but I was a Space Geek then and am one now (2nd class, amateur division).

Are you aware that Columbia (OV-102) is the second Shuttle Orbiter, and that the first, Enterprise (OV-101) flew in 1977, under the ALT (Approach and Landing Test) programme?

And that, despite the lack of SSME engines or indeed any sort of flight-representative thrust structure at the back of the craft, the production AP-101B computer, complete with representative software, was used on those flights (as it had to be, since Shuttle is fly-by-wire..).

Or, that on the last ALT flight (Flight 5), these very computers were if not cause then at least major contributing factor to a rather nasty Pilot Induced Oscillation (PIO) that caused Enterprise to land short? A fault that was corrected, in software, and the fix tested on the original Fly-By-Wire test aircraft, the F-8 FBW, using the exact same AP-101 computers.

Or that that FBW F8 had originally flown in 1973 using a single "DSKY" machine as flight computer, the same computer used on all Apollo spacecraft?

STS is very much a '70s design of a '60s concept (go read up on the StarClipper design to find out about what Shuttle should have been). With recent modifications it approaches the technology levels present in the early '80s, at costs comparable to '00s technologie crashes, with the reliability of a '30s airliner and the safety record of a ...ah, but we don't go there any more do we?

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you like to write in italics, then masturbate while you read it?

Moron.

Re:It has 64k of memory

[Anonymous Coward]

"I thot that ended in the late 60's."

You're a fucking monkey retard.

For spelling that way, you should be shought.

Easy Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Hire Steve Buscemi and Bruce Willis.

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Carmack's really known for his high-quality, nearly bug-free code.

Carmack's great at what he does, but I don't think something like this speaks to his talents.

Re:Easy solution

[russx2]

... yes, and after point release 6, the shuttles probably won't crash as much.

But hell, at least the explosions would look cool when they do.

Re:Easy solution

[Goonie]

And about version 1.3, it'll stop crashing...

John Carmack might be a kick-arse game programmer and a very smart guy, but he is not an expert compiler designer, complexity theorist, or, as is most relevant here, embedded systems programmer for safety-critical systems (though I'm sure he's rapidly learning about it with his rocketry hobby).

Re:Easy solution

[Keeper]

So we'll end up having to rocket jump into orbit...destroying a large portion of Florida in the process.

Hmm, might not be such a bad idea afterall...;)

bugs?

[linuxtuba]

no room to repair any software bugs

It had bugs...Dang, that's too bad. Of course, good software has no bugs, and anybody who says differently obviously has no idea what they're talking about. ;)

Time to upgrade eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 64K? Damn, I guess BIll Gates was right when he said that 640K ought to be enough for anybody...

the future?

[brondsem]

And what plans do they have to keep this from happening again in a decade?

Sorry if the article answers this, I can't get to it.

Re:the future?

[Flamerule]

From http://www.nasawatch.com/ksc/09.04.02.clcs.html:

The Checkout and Launch Control System (CLCS) was created differently than LPS. It provides more safety and more operator visibility into launch problems before they occur. It is expandable and capable of being upgraded. It is designed to accomplish not only today's Shuttle launches, but also provides a launch capability for any future vehicle. [emphasis added]

CLCS would apparently be flexible enough to control anything NASA needs for several decades.

Why not simulate it?

[null-und-eins]

Given todays hardware, why you can't just simulate the old system if finding parts for repair becomes a problem. You would just run your old software on the simulated machine.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the problem more one of hardware? Of course you could simulate the machine; but you'd have to
create real interfaces to whatever systems it controls.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

someone get the specs and do this open source.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Steveftoth]

I would think that requires rebuilding the whole thing anyway. So it might not actually improve it.

Also you have to ensure that the simulator has zero bugs, which means simulating the bugs in the original equiptment which their code depends on.

Writing a perfect software simulation of hardware is IMO a job as equally hard as just rewriting the original code.

It's not like they have millions and millions of lines of code, the original rom must to have been less then 64k or so. They just have to rewrite the code in a language that is more maintainable which machine code is not.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[rodgerd]

Auditing the emulator and the host OS would be a problem - the code they've currently got has a very low rate of bugs, and has been extensively audited. NASA knows everything from the hardware up, exactly what the failure rate is and so forth.

Now, imagine you take modern commodity hardware (which changes periodically - look at how often Intel silently release new steppings of their CPUs). You're not going to have a guarantee of consistency there. You're going to have to boot an OS off it - and even the simplest RTOSes are still much, much bigger than the whole platform currently. Then you need an emulator. Then you need the system. And the only problem you've solved with all that work is the unavailablility of the old hardware - you still have a old machine language on a tiny platform which can't be easily extended for new functionality.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Istealmymusic]

There comes a time in every products lifetime when its time to start over, and I believe this is the time. In the 70s, we knew significantly less about good coding practices as today. GOTO was first becoming considered harmful. Procedural programming was on the rise. Object-oriented as a paradigm was beginning to take root.

With these considerations in mind, clearly simulating an old computer is a very backwards idea. bug-for-bug compatibility is not a positive effect.

Same as bug-compatible, with the additional implication that much tedious effort went into ensuring that each (known) bug was replicated.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Billly Gates]

Remember that whatever machine you use to simulate it in needs the special connections and circuitry to interact with other parts of the ship. You can implement the software fine but how do you connect the engine, flappers, and sensors to it?

Re:Why not simulate it?

[rodgerd]

Given LISP and (IIRC) Smalltalk both existed in the 70s, the world wasn't as primitive as you make out.

Besides, the use of modern programming buzzwords implemented by college kids sounds like the principal problem with this project...

Re:Why not simulate it?

[io333]

There comes a time in every products lifetime when its time to start over,.

Exactly. And that includes the shuttle. It has never lived up to what it was envisioned to be and it is only going to become more costly and more failure prone in the future as every bit of hardware on that pig is already showing signs of fatigue.

There are many launch systems that cost far less per pound to throw things into orbit. The reasons we still have those monstrosities flying are political only, not technological or scientific.

Sure this is flamebate. (Gosh, getting rid of the old karma system is so LIBERATING!) But if we can discuss how some little bits of hardware in the shuttle are past their time, why can't we discuss the big bit?

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given LISP and (IIRC) Smalltalk both existed in the 70s, the world wasn't as primitive as you make out.

Democracy existed a couple thousand years ago but the world was still essentially primitive.
Reread the last post - it doesnt say those cs aspects didnt exist.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[WasterDave]

This is a very pertinent point that appears to have been lost on the initiators (and now burger flippers) of the replacement-launch-thingy project.

What they have, right there, is one spectacularly reliable piece of software. I suspect it's significantly more bug free than even the microcode in a modern processor, let alone the companion chips, bios, operating system, and virtual machine for some god awful p-code language (not that I'm naming names here).

The question that should have been asked is "how can we make a sustainable process for making extremely reliable control computers?". How to go about cutting custom silicon, tiny os's etc. How to save the happy tax payer hundreds of millions of dollars by reselling these services to people making nuclear power stations, heart pace makers etc. instead of going shopping for big sun boxes.

Oh well, reality strikes again.

Dave

Re:Why not simulate it?

[perfects]

Given todays hardware, why you can't just simulate the old system

You can't just buy a system from Dell and put it into the Space Shuttle. You can't use a Pentium, a modern hard drive, Linux, Windows, or Open Source anything.

As far as the hardware goes, everything mission-critical that goes aboard the Shuttle has to be ruggedize against incredible vibration, tested a thousand different ways to make sure that it can't be affected by exposure to vacuum/heat/cold/radiation/cosmic rays/etc., tested another thousand ways to make sure it doesn't interfere with other critical Shuttle systems... and on and on.

And a bug in the newly written software could cause not only the death of several astronauts, but potentially the loss of a Shuttle, a launch facility, and the ISS. Would you, under any circumstances, put your life, five other lives, and billions of dollars in the hands of software that you found in an Open Source project?

On your desk a "Fatal Error" isn't, really. But 60 miles up?

Re:Why not simulate it?

[GiMP]

I believe the discussion is about a computer that is based on the ground.. even if not, I think you fail to realize that NASA has been using Linux in space for a while.. PC104 boards with flash (solid state) memory running Linux.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[perfects]

I think you fail to realize that NASA has been using Linux in space for a while.

I'm aware of that, and Windows too. But neither one is used for mission-critical software, and that was my point.

The article specifically mentions the software that is used to launch the shuttle. If an experiment fails, oh well. If the launch fails, the entire nation mourns.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[ComputerSlicer23]

I'll point out two things. First off, it's not going into space, it's sitting the the control room, according to the diagram in the article. Still some shake testing, but not quite as much cosmic ray type stuff.

Second, readup on the history of NASA. The book by Krantz is very instructive. NASA has a history of generating overly redundant systems. Way overly redundant systems. That's why they've lost more astronauts flying them around in little planes they they have lost while flying them to anywhere else. NASA didn't know a lot of stuff, and didn't have very good testing before stuff when into space. They just built it to survive lots worse conditions then the worst they thought it could ever be. The major problems they had lately is that Congress wants, soon, quality, and cheap. Every good Engineer knows you only get two, and then only if your really good and really lucky...

While agree with you, NASA's stuff right now is hardened and tested and known working. They got it harded, tested and known working, without losing a single person in space. Yes they have lost some during testing on the ground. Yes they lost the Challenger, and 7 astronauts, but that wasn't faulty software, that was faulty management not listening to the world class Engineers who knew something was wrong.

Kirby

Re:Why not simulate it?

[InadequateCamel]

Because the main reason is COST, not politics. The shuttle does not perform as expected, and never will, but the cost of designing and testing a new computer system to make sure it has ZERO bugs is prohibitive enough; the cost of throwing out an old design that mostly works (with a lot of help) to build a new shuttle is simply out of the question. Just because technology SAYS something should work doesn't mean it will; that argument was probably used when they switched from the Saturn 5 rocket technology to today's shuttles.

On the other hand, the computer system has so little memory that it employs a series of data tapes which much be switched in mid-flight to carry out it's maneuvers. If for some reason the tapes cannot be switched and the backup is faulty, they have serious problems both in landing the shuttle (via a backup, landing-specific computer) and then in replacing the broken computer (which takes us back to the original post).

Re:Why not simulate it?

[PhotoGuy]

Surely with slightly more advanced, but far more available, and stable and simple technologies (programmable gate arrays, etc), they could do a next generation (well, .5 generations ahead) version of this.

The 7400's and such are just interface hardware; that logic, as well as replacement for the 64k ram, etc., could all be put on a single reliable chip (no I386, no heavy OS, no emulator).

There's got to be an only-slightly-more-complicated and nearly-as-reliable by not being too ambitious with the latest tech.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[io333]

the cost of throwing out an old design that mostly works (with a lot of help) to build a new shuttle is simply out of the question.

You are missing my point. Every time we send up something on the shuttle, we are spending minimum 2 to 4 times more dollars per pound than if we used another launch system available right now this second. And just to make sure you get it, I'll say it again: That means, if we just didn't bother using the shuttle and used anything else to launch what needs to be in orbit, we could send up two to four times as much stuff for the same money, or send it up for 2 to 4 times less money.

Havn't you noticed that hardly anyone commercial uses the silly thing? Most of the missions it go on are either SSS (silly space station(tm)) releated (tax), military (tax), or "scientific" (tax). You'd have to be NUTS to pay the going rate to send up your own private satellite on the shuttle & your shareholders would *destroy* you in a derivative suit.

Do you not believe me?

Do you see anything in these missions not paid for with pure tax?

It is easy to spend money on worthless crap when the money is free .

Re:Why not simulate it?

[man_ls]

I don't, honestly, think much of the nation, save the immidiate families and friends of the astronauts, would mourn.

There hasn't been a front page story of a shuttle launch for as long as I can remember, and even TV stations don't broadcast it like they used to do in the 80s.

Besides, the space program is not, at this point, existing in a vital capacity for our nation. There are no weapons platforms orbiting the earth. There are no survillance photographs. Hell, there isn't even a space tourism project run by the United States or a U.S. corporation -- the Russian government does that!

The Russian equipment is good enough to get people up and back safely -- and they're not above taking millions of dollars to let someone else experience it. The U.S. seems to have a hissy fit when they suggest it -- NASA is about "science" not "entertainment."

The nation's (and the law makers and budget appropriators) backwards views on the space program in general need to change, and before any type of a hardware change. It needs to be retasked to be under the Department of Defense, or outsourced to the public sector. Private companies build satellites that work right. Why can't they build the launch platform and send people up, too?

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about manned space flight?

Do we just go over to Soyez? Or ask the Chinese ;-)

For that type of mission yes the Shuttle is expensive but it's the only thing that can put 7-8 people in space.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could probably do that, but what is it that you hope to accomplish. The process of emulating it would be as or more complicated than redoing the system from scratch. I actually worked on those systems in manufacturing. The specification is at best misleading. Yes they only have 64K of memory, but they also had lots of custom hardware including writeable control stores which allow them to keep not only the standard instruction set available but also 2 additional totally custom instruction sets online at any given time. The custom stuff is replacable on the fly anytime you want. How do you emulate that? As some else already noted, by the time a project of this scale is complete it is already obsolete. Why do you think this stuff is using 1970s tech? It wasn't even current technology when I started working on it in the mid 70s. We still sold them but it was at least 3 generations back. Given the amount of other equipment from the same source and the level of redundency/backup, I'd be really surprised if they can't scrounge enough parts to keep that stuff running for another 50 years. Maybe they just need to contact a few of us old ex types to locate some sources?

Ah, for the good old days.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[mcpkaaos]

You mean networks back then weren't really stacks of punchcards carried around town by carrier pigeons? I'm gonna kill that lying COBOL programmer downstairs.

--
[McP]KAAOS

Re:Why not simulate it?

[reallocate]

As a proponent of an aggressive manned space program, I'd agree that the shuttle has not lived up to its initial objectives. This is due, in large measure, to the shuttle's inability to launch with the frequency NASA intended. The actual design of the shuttle was permanently compromised in political and budget battles during the Nixon administration.

Few, if any, expendable boosters have the lift capacity of the shuttle, so I'm skeptical abut your claim that "anything would be cheaper. But that's a quibble. More importantly, in the two decades that the shuttle has been flying, no one -- government or private -- has made a serious effort to design, build and launch boosters large enough to dramatically reduce cost-to-orbit. The technology is there; it has been there since the 1960's. What's keeping this from happening? Timidity and lack of political will. The "Final Frontier" is in the hands of bureaucrats and corporate execs who can't see beyond the next commo satellite launch. It's as if the only reason to move into space is to make our damn cell phones work.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There hasn't been a front page story of a shuttle launch for as long as I can remember, and even TV stations don't broadcast it like they used to do in the 80s.

Um, maybe this is because, well, no Shuttles have blown up for a while? IIRC, people had started to see launches as pretty routine right before the Challenger incident, too ...

Re:Why not simulate it?

[KewlPC]

Yes, and when one of those satellites has a problem, how do you fix it? Oh, that's right, you send up a space shuttle full of people to fix it.

I mean, look at the Hubble Space Telescope. If it weren't for the shuttle, the whole thing would've been just another piece of floating space junk. Because we have the capability to send actual humans into space, the HST could be fixed, and is now producing some of the most amazing pictures of space yet seen. It recently needed an upgrade, and guess how that was done? Yep, astronauts went up in the shuttle, replaced what needed to be replaced, and now the Hubble should be good to go for quite a while.

As for the International Space Station, I don't think it's all that silly. Yeah, it's over-budget. But it is also a good exercise in international cooperation. Do you really think that private enterprise is going to terraform other planets? The fact remains that any significant space effort is going to require international cooperation.

Nevermind that NASA's original plan was to 1)build a reuseable space vehicle (done), 2)build a permanent space station (in progress), 3)use those as stepping stones to things like sending people to Mars. Much of this plan has been kneecapped by politicians eager to steal NASA's budget for their own projects.

Can you come up with a better way to get humans into space (and bring them back if needed)?

Re:Why not simulate it?

[io333]

Can you come up with a better way to get humans into space (and bring them back if needed)?

I don't have to. Someone else already did that.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[rodgerd]

SNA and X.25 were both invented in the 1970s. So, for that matter, was Ethernet.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[io333]

There are no weapons platforms orbiting the earth.

You forgot the sarcasm emoticon ;) (or what is the emoticon for cynicism?...)

Re:Why not simulate it?

[FFFish]

Or use old, but solidly reliable, thoroughly-tested and completely documented CPUs from Ye Olde Days, like the 6809. Or even the 6502.

When dealing with shuttles and the like, K.I.S.S. should be the mandate. Ain't nuttin' complicated about a 6809 mobo, yet it can be coupled with an MMU to provide upwards of 1Mb of memory, and there are excellent realtime, multitasking OSes available... with source, IIRC (OS-9, from Microware; and I think there's a QNX for it, too. Plus [ooooh, he stretches his memory...] Flex-09?).

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong.

After the Challenger disaster, NASA put in rules banning commercial use of the Shuttle. It was not worth risking the lives of humans to launch cargo for commercial entities. So of course you're not going to find any launches not funded by the government on spaceref.com.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[io333]

Really? Wow, I missed that one. Hmmm... that seems rediculous as that's what the shuttle was originally supposed to do. Mission creep I guess. Oh well, whatever.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Saeger]

how do you fix it? Oh, that's right, you send up a space shuttle full of people to fix it.

Not for long. Robotics is getting better and cheaper faster than space tech + expensive humans. It's only a few millisecs of latency for telepresence, until AI can do the job locally (much later).

Do you really think that private enterprise is going to terraform other planets?

Terraforming? How quaint. Extrapolating tech into the future indicates we'll sooner be taking the planets apart for raw molecular building material than wasting space & material & escape velocity energy, by living on the tiny surface area of another gravity well.

Can you come up with a better way to get humans into space (and bring them back if needed)?

Yeah. Divert a larger chunk of the money that would be wasted on chemical rockets and deadweight NASA beaurocrats into nanotech research so we can bootstrap ourselves off this planet much much earlier.

--

Re:Why not simulate it?

[tdykstra]

I mean, look at the Hubble Space Telescope. If it weren't for the shuttle, the whole thing would've been just another piece of floating space junk.

The HST was a PR thing anyway, for the same money they could of build several ground based telescopes that made the same nice pictures. I wouldn't be amazed if somebody told me they fitted the broken mirror on purpose so they could go and fix it with the shuttle...

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather live on a terraformed Mars than in a tincan space station with no view any day of the week. And the envirenmentalists and romantics of the future would never allow our sacred planets to be destroyed like the rain forests.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[guybarr]

The HST was a PR thing anyway, for the same money they could of build several ground based telescopes that made the same nice pictures

Huh ? at what frequency regimes ? what about X-rays ? IR ? UV ?

besides, the atmosphere does distort image even for visible-light imagery. It is true that advances in image-fixing algorithms made, AFAIK, in the last decade attenuate the problem to a large degree, but, AFAIK, there was nothing like that in the seventies, and nothing is better than eliminating the problem altogether anyway.

perhaps today it will better to build bigger telescopes on earth than launch them (again, for the visible light regime. I very much doubt this is true for X, UV or IR imagery ... ) but I don't think this was even remotely true when the HST was designed and built.

saying such a large project, with published scientific results, is "just PR" with no references to back up your claim seems like slander to me.

I wouldn't be amazed if somebody told me they fitted the broken mirror on purpose so they could go and fix it with the shuttle...

I wouldn't be amazed by a lot of things, but I don't ususally go slandering hard-working people just based on what I suspect they are capable of doing.

The US space program and NASA deserve (and get) a lot of criticism, much of it is quite pejorative, much of it is technically sound. I haven't seen any such thing in your post, which is IMHO just nasty unbased negative PR .

Re:Why not simulate it?

[tdykstra]

Huh ? at what frequency regimes ? what about X-rays ? IR ? UV ?
I think you can build much cheaper single purpose satelites for that.

saying such a large project, with published scientific results, is "just PR" with no references to back up your claim seems like slander to me. Ok, ok.. maybe I was a little harsh on the HST, but I think the fact remains that ways a really, really expensive and a lot of atronomers would rather have had that money to do other things. Then again everybody likes his own project the best... ;)

Re:Why not simulate it?

[perfects]

I don't, honestly, think much of the nation, save the immidiate families and friends of the astronauts, would mourn. There hasn't been a front page story of a shuttle launch for as long as I can remember, and even TV stations don't broadcast it like they used to do in the 80s.

The last launch of the Challenger in January of 1986 was not covered by anybody but CNN (who still covers them by the way) and it had been that way for a couple of years. But when it blew up it dominated the news for months. Reagan addressed the nation on TV, a presidential commission was formed, thousands of schoolchildren collected money for a memorial...

And it wasn't just because a civilian was on board, the entire crew was mourned. (Don't forget that civilians and foreign nationals now fly all the time.)

Re:Why not simulate it?

[ckaminski]

Oh please.

I challenge you to name a single one of the other astronauts who died aboard Challenger, without looking it up at http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/chron/sts51-l.h tm. And Christa McAuliffe is not an answer. :-)

I know I couldn't.

So, on another note, anyone know how many people it takes to actually FLY the shuttle? 2? pilot and co-pilot?

-Chris

Re:Why not simulate it?

[perfects]

I challenge you to name a single one of the other astronauts who died aboard Challenger

I remembered two others off the top of my head, but what does that have to do with anything? Do you remember the names of more than one of the Iranian hostages? That has no bearing on the magnitude of the event.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that there are systems that can throw things into orbit for less money but are they "Man rated"? I seem to recall a few Titan's, Ariane's, Delta's, etc. exploding after liftoff. Reliability is not cheap.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[gorilla]

Before deciding to start over, you should decide if it's worth doing at all. Do we really need a manned space program? There is nothing that we can do which is worthwhile doing, which can't be done with an unmanned program.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Huh ? at what frequency regimes ?"
"(again, for the visible light regime.)"

regime

A form of government: a fascist regime.
A government in power; administration: suffered under the new regime.
A prevailing social system or pattern.
The period during which a particular administration or system prevails.
A regulated system, as of diet and exercise; a regimen.

Is it too boring for you to just say frequency range??
Twit.

Re:Why not simulate it?

[AyeRoxor!]

"Before deciding to start over, you should decide if it's worth doing at all. Do we really need a manned space program? There is nothing that we can do which is worthwhile doing, which can't be done with an unmanned program."

Unhhhhh... Closed-minded thinking like this is waayyyyyy to prevalent. Look back. Now look forward. We need to study the effects of space on people because (sitting down?) it will, in time, become incredibly easy to send people far into space, to other planets. It might not be for hundreds of years, but it will happen. Just like cars, and guns, computers, and airplanes, people like you said people shouldn't bother with such dreams.

I'm glad we don't listen to people like you.

This demonstrates the trend

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

Unfortunately, this demonstrates the trend and growing problem in software development of bloated code. Just think about it, if a machine with 64k of memory could run the code necessary to control the launch of the space shuttle, it should be enough to do even the most complicated of tasks. The current memory requirements for most of the common Linux distributions is obscene. 32 MB, 64 MB, where will it stop? Of course, with this bloating horror of what we call "good" code, we lose a lot of the quality seen in software of yesterday. Give me my TRS-80, and I'll show you legendary software design.

Re:This demonstrates the trend

[superdan2k]

I think it's important to realize that the Shuttle also represents the pinnacle of 1970's computing and that the whole of computing has changed significantly in the last ~25 years. In the 1970's, you didn't worry about things like GUIs (and all the "bloat" that they entail), TCP/IP stacks, extensive amounts of code to deal with the wide variety of hardware configuration, etc.

It's not so much an issue of bloated code as it is an attempt to cover all the bases. The shuttle software was designed with one purpose in mind -- get that shit-heap into orbit. You can't compare it to a modern Linux distro without invoking an apples-to-oranges counter-argument.

Furthermore, the launch of the shuttle isn't handled by a single onboard computer. It's handled by several. Please reference The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual for more on the systems aboard the shuttle. It's a general, non-technical overview, but a great reference, nonetheless.

You ask "where will it stop?" Here's a hint: it won't. And this same argument probably came up in the 1970's when they started writing the spec for the shuttle. The computer aboard the shuttle is more capable than Apollo for a mission profile that isn't significantly more difficult in any regard (generally speaking). Hell, the PDA you have sitting on your desktop right now has far more computing power than all the computers involved in the Apollo program put together, and it certainly doesn't do anything like putting men on the moon.

But again, it's all a matter of the scope of usage.

too much waste

[t0ny]

I think as long as NASA is in charge of our space program we will continue to have myopic planning. Hopefully soon space will become privatized.

Lets put Rocketguy in charge of NASA!

Re:too much waste

[Raiford]

It's really not myopic planning. It is planning within too many budgetary constraints. After the Apollo program America's focus on space exploration was greatly diminished. There were no more grand goals and manned space exploration was confined to earth orbit. NASA had a huge reduction in force(RIF) in the mid 70's. My former boss described it as a very dismal and depressing time from which the agency has never really recovered.

NASA falls under the classification of "independent agency" within the Federal government. The budget is hooked up with other agencies such as the Vetran's Administration if that tell you anything about how things are considered.

Re:too much waste

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that

a. there are three times as many NASA scientists and techies over 55 than under 30

b. 25% of all NASA scientists and techies are due to retire within five years.

So where are they going to get to get the next generation? And how are they going to pick up the experience learned from Apollo?

If I'd joined NASA in the early '70's (as Apollo was winding down) and was facing retirement in the next few years I'd be *very* pissed off. Thirty years' service, achieving *WHAT*????

Re:too much waste

[Raiford]

I joined NASA in 1987. There was a push to hire young engineers and scientist in the mid to late 80s. In 1989 a hiring freeze was invoked that remained for some number of years. I was there for 12 years and the only young people that were hired were hired through what was called "creative staffing" through support service contractor companies. The age distribution at my duty station was very bi-modal (a lot in the 25-35 range and a lot in the 55-65 range). I still have friends that are waiting for civil service slots to open however each NASA center only hires a handful of civil servents each year.

It's the nature of doing business in the Federal government when that kind of technology is not where the focus is. It's a pretty bleak picture.

They should make it open source

[Anonymous Coward]

If they used Linux (which they could obtain Free as in beer and speech), and open sourced the space shuttle code, Open Source programmers from around the world could donate their time to the cause, and NASA wouldn't have to pay anybody. Plus, since it's open source, the code would be bug-free, and anyone would be able to contribute their fixes and additions. I'd love to see Open Source take "one giant leap" by a stronghold of support from NASA.

Re:They should make it open source

[Lieutenant_Dan]

Thank you for filling in for me. I had to rest the OSS flag for a while.

Re:They should make it open source

[Anonymous Coward]

They could always look here

http://flightlinux.gsfc.nasa.gov/

maybe a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing

Or you could just...

[Ed Avis]

At some point it might be cheaper to give up on computers and just pilot the Shuttle by hand.

Re:Or you could just...

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Remember Space Cowboys....Flying brick eh??

Re:Or you could just...

[chris_sawtell]

The Russians tried this out on Mir and wrecked it. Is that what you want?

Re:Or you could just...

[mborland]

At some point it might be cheaper to give up on computers and just pilot the Shuttle by hand.

That's true if you don't value human lives (I don't mean that to be inflamatory). IIRC only one person has actually flown the Shuttle through all of re-entry. It is actually way too dangerous to leave that sort of thing up to humans on a regular basis, for if the experienced pilot on board passed out, etc. there would be no recourse and the Shuttle and its crew would be lost. Better to have that process rely on multiple redundant computing processes.

Scope creep ?

[plierhead]

Hmmm..

current system has just 64K memory...

replacement system has been underway since 1996 - and 400 contractors will get the axe when its canned..

sounds like the "replacement" system might have suffered from a bit of scope creep ??

Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a Linux that will install on a machine with only 640K RAM? I have an old 486 laptop that's only got 1MB RAM. Normally I use Debian, but it needs 12MB to install...

Re:Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

The smallest it will fit in is 4MB, and that's with a special low-memory kernel from Slackware. Usual "old" minimum was 8, but I see that has changed.

Re:Serious question:

[enderak]

Minix will run more than happily on that.. :)

Re:Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/sma ll-linux/

2 MB is the smallest I've ever heard of. Don't expect to use it for much more than a router or terminal. It is likely that you can find more ram for the old laptop somewhere. Most floppy linuxes try to make a 4 mb ram disk right off the bat and thus won't boot.

So...

[NetJunkie]

Where do I get my own shuttle so I can test the code I wrote?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here:

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/buran_auc ti on_ends_020523.html

You did code your software to be portable across hardware platforms, right?

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how are SSI (small scale integration) chips hard to find... The 7400 series is industry standard and everyone still makes them. Just look at Ti, Motorolla, ON Semiconductor, National Semiconductor, etc. Sure they're NOT the kind of building blocks you'd like to use now (espcially when you could use a microprocessor or FPGA) but they're not hard to find by ANY means.

Re:Huh?

[KewlPC]

Yeah, but no two manufacturers make them EXACTLY the same way. Sure, the interface (number of pins, what the pins do, etc.) might be the same, but a chip from manufacturer #1 might be susceptible to one thing, while the same chip from manufacturer #2 isn't.

The chips in question probably must meet a very specific list of requirements.

Scope creep!

[oliverthered]

Well that's what you get if you hire 400 contractors to a nice cooshie government job

Re:Scope creep!

[rodgerd]

Nothing to do with the government. Pretty much every replacement of a so-called legacy system I've ever seen blows out the same way. Anyone who's seen replacement banking systems, SAP rollouts, you name it, will have the same experience.

Re:Scope creep!

[oliverthered]

All of the people I know who work on that kind of project are contractory,
Banks, have to keep up with changing laws &co easy life job!

SAP systems, there are rate of change in business and accounting laws is high enough to keep you in a contract job for life.

Common Problem

[NASAKnight]

This is a common problem in big projects. The time it takes to design a system and then actually implement that system is so great, that by the time the sytem is complete, the hardware used to make that system is 'obsolete.' You can't just add more memory and speed, because then you'd have to go through and make sure that everything still works perfectly, and that would take so long as to make the current hardware 'obsolete.' The real problem here is public hype. You don't need 4 GHz and 40GB of memory to program the space shuttle, but if the public finds out that NASA only uses 64k, they will think NASA is behind the times, even though 64K is enough for the system. Of course, the space shuttle is already considered obsolete by some, and new sytems are being created, so don't fret much over this.

Stephen

Re:Common Problem

[Libor Vanek]

But you have to also count that such a obsolete HW it's also BIG and HEAVY - and that counts in space bussiness. Nevertheless - I think when you design such a system more modular and in Java (or C++) any future upgrade will be much more easier (how long do we use C/C++ and it still seems to be going on) - not I'm saying easier, not easy!

Re:Common Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't the linux kernel in C++?
Why try to do OOP is C when C++ takes all the nasty looking code away.
Was BeOS to slow or something?

Re:Common Problem

[NASAKnight]

It's not the software that's a problem, it's the hardware. What if we want to update the hardware one day (which is what the article is talking about)? Well, let's assume we used a language that SHOULD be platform dependant in the first place. Do we assume the infalliability of the language implementors or do we test every possible thing and make sure it works with the new hardware? Well, this is space buisness, we're dealing in lives, of course we check everything, and that takes time, which was my point.

Re:Common Problem

[GigsVT]

In cases like this, with lots of discrete logic, the software IS the hardware. I doubt much of this is a general purpose computer in the way you would think of it.

As to the people suggessting C++ or Java, get real. I would sooner buy an MS product than trust my life to C++ or Java programming. Keep it simple. Also, I think it's a sad state of affairs when discrete logic chips are getting hard to find... how will people ever learn to build computers from scratch anymore? We will be in danger of losing basic knowledge to levels of abstraction, which is very dangerous indeed.

Re:Common Problem

[cheeto]

Actually, the old AP101 computers may have had 64k of memory (I don't recall). We upgraded those bad boys a long time ago to AP101S which have a whopping 256k. Who could ask for anything more.

FYI: That extra bump in memory allowed us to store the entire Entry program in upper memory so that in the event of a Trans-Atlantic abort, we wouldn't have to wait 20 seconds for it to load from the mass memory.

Re:Common Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you didn't suggest Java for controlling the space shuttle. First of all, it's a stupid idea, and second of all it violates the EULA. It states that you are not ALLOWED to write anything truely mission critical (and we'e not talking mission like a Yahoo server) in Java. Nuclear power station and pacemaker software are specifically cited; you can bet the Space Shuttle control software falls under this clause. Personally, I do think they need a new system, but I'd code it in straight assembly and skip all the extra crap (OS, BIOS, etc). It'd be better, faster, and more reliable if they design the system SOLEY for it's purpose.

Re:Common Problem

[sql*kitten]

The time it takes to design a system and then actually implement that system is so great, that by the time the sytem is complete, the hardware used to make that system is 'obsolete.'

Which is why serious software engineering is done on platforms like the SPARC, where you can guarantee that later CPUs can run earlier code, or on IBM operating systems where everything is a virtual amchine anyway.

7400s hard to find?

[Istealmymusic]

I don't know about everyone else, but when I was a kid I got a Radio Shack 300-in-1 electronic project kit for my birthday which came with a dozen or so 7400 chips. When I plugged one in backwards I just went down to my local Radio Shack and picked up a new 74LS00, which they had plenty of in stock all the time.

Certainly the 7400 series as a whole is still widespread and used in hobbyists kits, I'm not that old. Maybe the original 7400 is becoming obsolete, being replaced with the 74LS (low-power Schottkey) or CMOS chips? If then it shouldn't be too difficult to replace the TTL logic with CMOS logic, given a few adjustment levels in voltage, or they could use the TTL-logic and CMOS-logic in one compatible chips.

Of course, the 5400 series SSIs (small-scale integrated circuits) are preferred over the 7400s for industrial purposes, and as a plus they are completely backwards compatible. Why isn't NASA using those?

Re:7400s hard to find?

[Jeffrey Baker]

You can cause a lot of problems by replacing a part in a working system with the manufacturer's new and improved part. Often the new part has faster outputs, which can change your PCB layouts from working to marginal.

Given the above, I still don't see why they would not reimplement the whole thing in a slightly newer logic family and requalify it.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[mikewas]

The 54 series parts were like the 74 series, but in a hermitically sealed case, 100% tested over a wider temperature range, and burned in to remove infant failures. For this application they used space qualified components. The same as 54 series parts, more stringent tests, and now the chips are also evaluated for radiation resistance. Any change in the design or production process and the 54 & space qualified chips must be requalified. What can happen is that a chip is produced to be fuctionally the same, but using smaller geometries, and now is more suseptiple to ESD and radiation.

CMOS chips, because of their high impedances, are notorious for ESD and rad sensitivity so they won't do.

With the reduction in military, aerospace, and space spending many manufacturers have dropped the 54 series and space qualified components. They haven't made any attempts to add replacements in their product lines.

When a part is dropped, the manufacturer usually informs the industry of their intent. You're given a date & price for a final order. the theory is that you can buy a lifetime supply of these parts. Industry isn't likely to but any more than they need to complete existing contracts plus a few spares, there's no guarenty that you'll get any more contracts to build items requiring these parts so these purchases will cut into your profits. Government procurment may buy additional components, but lack funding to really buy large quantities.

An opportunity is presented, and they will be taken advantage of. A distributer might buy some additional parts -- since the distribributer has several customers buying a particular part from him, his risk of being stuck with an unseable component is small.

After the final production run, the chip manufactorers will sell the documentation, tooling, and rights to make a chip. There are small manufacturers who buy these, all well as the out of date machinery to produce these parts. They can then make small production runs, sometimes under a hundred components, for a price. In addition, they might buy untested dice or wafers from the last production run. The untested & unpackaged componets are very cheap, so it's more affordable & less risky to buy and store these than the completed components.

So it is possible to still get the parts needed? -- at a price!

Re:7400s hard to find?

[inflex]

The problem is that the shuttle doesn't use normal spec '7400' chips, their chips are usually radiation-hardened military spec chips. While your standard 74LS series are still easy to get, the higher spec ones are not.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why cant they get the NSA to fabricate their parts? :) I mean seriously, as long as you are going to maintain semiconductor manufacturing plants for government branches you might as well spread the joy ...

Re:7400s hard to find?

[rant-mode-on]

• When I plugged one in backwards I just went down to my local Radio Shack and picked up a new 74LS00

Dunno about the Shuttle, but I assume my experience applies. I used to write autopilot & autostabilser software for helicopters. They used 80286 & 68000 CPUs, which have started to become more difficult to find. Not because there are no 286's or 68K's out there, but because there aren't so many 286's and 68K's available that are certified for flight.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[Anonymous Coward]

They use rad-hardened chips for ground based systems too?

Re:7400s hard to find?

[volsung]

I once asked the electronics guru at the university satellite lab where I used to work why were were launching a 386 when we could have stuck a more modern processor (like a StrongARM or something) on the main board. He pointed out that older style chips were preferrable because the gates and interconnects were all bigger. A bigger gate was less likely to get triggered or flipped (if it were in a register or something) by a stray particle of cosmic radiation. Low tech chips were easier to certify for space use because of this.

I'm sure we could have gotten faster chips rated for space, but we were on a tight budget, so the 386 was it. :)

Re:7400s hard to find?

[fishbowl]

"there aren't so many 286's and 68K's available that are certified for flight."

How much of that is bureaucracy at work, and how much is technical?

Re:7400s hard to find?

[crawling_chaos]

How much of that is bureaucracy at work, and how much is technical?

Remind me not to fly on any plane that you worked on the avionics for. There are times when overwhelming paranoia is an asset. When your Playstation crashes you can always start a new game. When your main engines get told to hardover on launch because of a failed chip, you die.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[mikewas]

If they wanted to buy the rights and the documentation to the obsoleted parts I guess they could. It'd get some of our representatives in DC bent out of shape though. Generally they want to keep this sort of work in the private sector -- free markets, competition, and all that. It lets the senators & representatives claim that they kept jobs for their constituents.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[mikewas]

For ground based they generally use the 5400, though they might use some space qualified parts in circuitry requiring high reliability.

I seem to remember working with telephony equipment -- the central frequency reference at the site where multiple microwave & coax links came together used space-qualified parts. Even though there was a backup there'd be a glitch on hundreds of thousands of DS0s (8kBPS voice channels), so they wanted all the reliability possible.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[rant-mode-on]

its a good question. not sure, to be honest. i was told that they were supposed survive more severe conditions - heat, humidity, radiation etc, no idea if that's true though. i seem to remember that their entire history is documented so they can guarantee they've not been mishandled by some intern who hadn't been on the anti-static course. So much of it could be paperwork, but its still a burden that has a cost, and most definately rules out the use of second hand CPUs.

Re:7400s hard to find?

[fishbowl]

It's bound to be more expensive to manufacture
the same product to a high tolerance, and again
to a lower one... I'd guess the difference is
in the QA. If you're tooled up to make a chip to high tolerances, why would you make a whole separate set of tools and processes to create the same product at a lower quality?

The write stuff?

[big_debacle]

There's an old Slashdot article that I couldn't find that pointed out this article about the code for the shuttle.

The implication in this article is that there few bugs in the code to start with (1 bug in 420,000 lines of code).

So was the first article bogus or this open source fantasy about flying a space ship?

Re:The write stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh man....I was watching 'The Right Stuff' yesterday...the part with the oscilloscope...painful. It just reinforces the fact the the USSR and the USA where really just using Germany's finest scientists to do space stuff. The other interesting thing is the if you compare the old Soviet Space programme and the its remnents, maybe losing the space race was good for the states. A chimp in space, haha.

Re:The write stuff?

[jilles]

No that article was based on a stable situation (i.e. same technology, stable requirements and same methodology for each project). Because of stringent control and heaps of experience, they had perfected the process. With this project they picked new technologies and new methodology, hired a bunch of contracters and ran into the inevitable problem of shifting requirements, more new technology and methodological issues (off the shelf methods always need to be fine tuned and tailored).

The worrying thing is that with their expertise, they could have known that this would happen. The appropriate thing to do would have been pilot projects followed by more ambitious projects. Now they've bet everything on one horse and are left empty handed. What they had before they started was a piece of shit (presumably that was why they wanted to get rid of it), and now they have to face maintaining that piece of shit again.

It may have been an elegant system when it was first designed. However by now it has probably seen countless adaptations, comes with thousands of pages of documented changes (they are control freaks) and probably is very hard to understand and maintain. Likely many of its original designers are deceased or retired by now.

The decision to cancel the project appears to be a panic reaction by management. What they will soon find out is that their old stuff no longer can be modified cost effectively to new requirements. Replacing it will easily take half a decade if you start from scratch and they have just thrown away the efforts of half a decade of development.

Hey, O'Keefe, look what I found on SourceForge...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

What?

"shuttle_launcher_0_1"

Excellent. That'll save a few dollars. What's the development status?

"1 - Planning, sir"

Ah.

Go manual...

[LucidBeast]

Can't they just do it by hand? You know press that red button under that white glass plate and kaboom we have lift-off...

Or better yet have the astronauts just lift the clutch and step on it.

Re:Go manual...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would suck if he stalled it....

Re:Go manual...

[LucidBeast]

How true, didn't think of that and it's uphill too.

Re:They should make it open source---BWAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

"since it's open source, the code would be bug-free"

LMAO!

A Simple Solution

[NeuroManson]

(1) Print up 50,000 numbered authenticity certificates...

(2) Break down the old mainframes until you have roughly 50,000 pieces...

(3) Sell it on eBay (or other auction sites) as space memorabilia, mention that the computer the parts came from were responsible for guiding the Apollo missions to the moon, etc and so on... The machines are SO obsolete now that the only way they could pose a security risk is by sending them back in time...

(4) Profit!

(5) Buy a nice little beowulf cluster, hire 20 Linux geeks and feed each of them $50 in dew and pizza in exchange for setting up the system...

(6) Use remaining funds to pay the Russian space agency to have a little "airlock accident" for that Nsync guy...

Re:A Simple Solution

[Anonymous DWord]

In re: point number 6, I know you'll be sad to hear that 'N Sync guy's flight is no longer on. There was an article in the NY Times last Wednesday that made me laugh.

...
[Lance] Bass, of the pop group 'N Sync, had been training at the Star City cosmonaut complex outside Moscow; he was told today to pack his gear and leave after "failing to fulfill the conditions of his contract," a spokesman for the space agency told Reuters.
Adding insult to injury, the space agency said Mr. Bass, 23, would be replaced on the October mission by a cargo container.

Re:A Simple Solution

[Russ Steffen]

I'm surpised he wasn't replaced with an inanimate carbon rod.

Re:A Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

They would have used the inanimate carbon rod, but Lance Bass thought it would make a better dildo and took it home so he could conduct "experiments" with the rest of N'Sync.

Re:A Simple Solution

[obnoximoron]

Apparently the band found this a brilliant idea and replaced Lance Bass with a cargo container.

Re:A Simple Solution

[oval_pants]

Yes but that would have been a voluntary mission. This one wouldn't have to be...

Re:A Simple Solution

[AndroidCat]

Dang. You know, they could have saved a bit by only buying a one-way ticket rather than a full fair round-trip. (Or maybe even half-way.)

Re:A Simple Solution

[DemonSlayer]

NASA is in a budget crunch ????
Bull shit. They can learn from the Russian, get money from space tourists.

For example, charge Bill Gates $1 Billion to go to sent him out of space and charge him $20 Billion to get him back to earth.

Why is it so expensive to get back ? Well, he must out bid millions of hackers and his competitors (Sun, IBM, Netscape, AOL, Apple ) who are willing to pay NASA to leave him out there.

Re:A Simple Solution

[ReelOddeeo]

+1 Insightful.

Re:A Simple Solution

[NeuroManson]

Mod +1 Funny

Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Manned space flight is unnecessary anyway. It's shameful how much money we spend putting a handul of overpaid pilots in space, so they can fix some pork-project telescope used by overpaid scientists to peep at blobs of light billions of miles away, when there are millions of people here on Earth who lack access to clean running water or nutritious food.

With the upcoming anniversary of 9/11/01, I think it's time for Americans to sit down and think long and hard about what's really important in this world.

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw that! I want pork rinds

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing where the Earth, our Solar system, our Galaxy, and possibly the Universe came from may be the ultimate important question humanity as a whole needs to figure out. It's important to have science answer these questions, as opposed to speculation or religion, since those are the things that lead to things like Sep 11th in the first place.

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[jameslore]

Likewise, it's obscene that you are sitting at a computer commenting on this topic when you could be helping the aforementioned people.

At least the shuttles further knowledge; now America could do a lot more for developing countries by having really free trade (why does the world's largest economy keep helping out already big business?).

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[jesco]

Manned space flight is unnecessary anyway. It's shameful how much money we spend putting a handul of overpaid pilots in space, so they can fix some pork-project telescope used by overpaid scientists to peep at blobs of light billions of miles away, when there are millions of people here on Earth who lack access to clean running water or nutritious food.

And it is indeed shameful how much money you spend on unnecessary luxuries, like a car (use public transit instead), a TV (radio and/or newspaper do the job as well), a piece new clothes every months, fast-food etc. Not to mention the 200 billion dollars spent by the U.S. government for defense.

By all means I want everybody in this world to have a home, clean water and enough food to live comfortably. But your using world-poverty as an argument against scientific research is dumb (sorry, got no better word for it).

Sure, astronomics/astrophysics have no immediate use in our daily life, but the ideas, concepts and discoveries are useful in many more application-oriented research.

This called 'basics research'.

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[Anonymous Coward]

all of you clowns above me have just fallen for one of the oldest trolls in the slashdot book

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[bullett.net]

Yes, we should cancel the high tech gov't programs wherein the vast majority of what we all use today has its origins, if not conceptually then made practical by application. Oust those wasteful mid-level enginners and scientists with 1.5 kids and 2.0 mortgages and a college tuition bill. Instead give their money to unemployable gin-swilling bastard factories and their 6 children by 5 different absentee males. That's the wise inventment for the futute of this country, not some silly technology like transistors, lasers, radars, radios, pumps, optics, computers, or jet engines. While we are at it, we can eliminate the Defense Dept also. Surrender half the country to Mexico, and the other half to Canada. Just think of all the free abortions and needles you could buy with that!

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[Anonymous Coward]

That 200 Billion in defense you're complaining about is helping to keep you safe from nations who would dance in glee over the destruction of the United States and its allies. The truth is that, if it came down to billion-dollar telescopes or feeding America's underprivileged, I'd be feeding our own, not a government agncy that is proven to mismanage project money and make false promises.

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[Anonymous Coward]

And? what are you gonna do with the information? B.F.Deal. You're not gonna be able to build another universe. Anyway all the information gathered from those projects is speculation, not proof.

Re:Just Cancel the Shuttle Program

[jesco]

And those 'overpaid' scientists make it possible to accumulate wealth, health and whatnot.

Just accept it. Science is _NOT_ only about application research. You need to understand the basics, before you can think about applications. Got it?

It's amazing how it even works because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Newer Cell phones have more power.

Re:It's amazing how it even works because...

[LucidBeast]

Nah, I can't get three times 2,174,286 Newtons of thrust out of my Nokia... Stuff about engines

Reservoir Dogs

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no, hire Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, and Quentin Tarantino to steal some diamonds to fund the project.

Not thinking smart

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not thinking too smart.
If they don't trust an emulator why then take their gates and chips ... put the logic into a netlist... fire up Cadence or another tool and burn a custom chip that is their original machine reduced to one nice chip. Now hire a ME to put it into a compatible case and you are off to the races.

Emulate?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a bunch of kids can hack up an emulator for every damn architecture under the sun with stuff like MAME and MESS, why can't NASA just emulate the stuff on a modern system. Save them tons of money too.

Attention NASA Folks

[rtblmyazz]

You can get 7400s at Newark Electronics here. Hurry, I think they have only 10 million left in stock.... I they run out I have a couple in my junkbox.

Re:hey assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up Al Gore.

Good Riddance!

[Prof.Phreak]

If they think they can improve quality and robustness of the system by implementing it in "new" languages, use OO techniques, make it 100x as large (and use 1000x the resources), and hire people off the street (html coders anyone?) to do it, they're obviously in for a disaster.

Oh come ON guys!!!

[nettdata]

It's not like this is rocket science!

Oh, wait....

Re:Oh come ON guys!!!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yeah, but you're forgetting that rocket science isn't rocket science anymore ;-)

Re:Oh come ON guys!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Damn it Smithers, this is brain surgery not rocket science!"

Re:Oh come ON guys!!!

[selectspec]

It isn't rocket science. It's horticulture and geriatrics.

This is how you launch the shuttle

[thelinuxking]

It has 64k of memory and no room to repair any software bugs.

LOAD "NASASHUTTLE",8,1

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[saskboy]

So how do you know the 64k, doesn't refer to a Tandy Color Computer II?

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

Because only homosexuals used CoCos. You're not implying that NASA is filled with homosexuals, are you?

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[kubrick]

LOAD "NASASHUTTLE",8,1

Just make you have one of those speedup cartridges, otherwise they'll be moving too slowly to get into orbit...

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[Kymermosst]

Hah! I don't think a 1541 is fast enough to handle that!

My Apple II, on the other hand, you just insert the disk and flip the power, and the NASASHUTTLE program comes up automatically, in 1/10th the time your C= disk drive loads it!

Of course, your version has better sound, and sprite graphics... but oh well.

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. Is this what we've resorted to? Commodore vs apple vs trs-80 arguments in the year y2k2? :-)

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... The article referred to the shuttle using tapes... Shouldn't that read:

LOAD
PRESSS PLAY ON TAPE

Re:This is how you launch the shuttle

[Kymermosst]

Hey, I've still got an Apple IIgs set up and running.

Speaking of Apple IIs and shuttles, the GraFORTH forth compiler came with a 3D shuttle animation. It was pretty cool, even though it was wireframe.

Space-Station cost overruns

[wfmcwalter]

However, NASA is in a budget crunch with the Space Station cost overruns

Just what is the space station actually for?

• it's an expensive way to get second-rate microgravity
• it's a rotten, wobbly astronomy platform
• no-one is allowed to experiment with low-G sex (given the Russians' new found capitalistic streak, it's a wonder we've not seen any low-G porno yet - or maybe I'm just not in the loop on that)
• despite what the conspiracy-theory boys say, it'd make a crappy spy satellite and a worse orbital weapons platform
• there's only so many interesting things we can find out about how spiders make webs in freefall
• it's not even an efficient way for the US government to prop up the Russian government

The money spent on this (and the space shuttle) could be spent on real science and could get a thousand off-the-shelf spaceprobes to interesting places.

I suppose getting rid of Lance Bass would have made it worthwhile, but even that's not going to happen anymore (unless /.ers constribute to a paypal account for this purpose...)

roses are red
violets are blue
the Russians have satellite laser weapons
so why can't we too?

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a low-G porno out there that was filmed in the vomit comet. Can't remember the name off-hand.

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[Anonymous Coward]

I've no idea, but allow me to make some title suggestions to any producers who may be reading:

- Thrust Maneuvers
- Orbital Injection
- (my personal favorite) Reentry Burn

Excuse me, I have to go ... to the restroom.

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a low-G porno out there that was filmed in the vomit comet. Can't remember the name off-hand.

It was called "The Uranus Experiment Part 2". Filmed in 1998, I believe, and starring the lovely (in a slutty way) Silvia Saint.

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, for some reason it pops up as the first result in "zero-gravity sex" on Google.

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, they have actually had low-G porn... however, that was done using aeroplanes in freefall to simulate the zero-G of space. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the film, though.

Posted anonymously, because I really don't want to be associated with knowing this...

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[gorilla]

You're assuming that it's got a function. It hasn't, because the possible serious uses got cut out of the budget as non-essential.

Re:Space-Station cost overruns

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "function" is so we can say "WHOO! We have people living in space!"

More shuttle development?

[timeOday]

The code in the Shuttle's launch system is old? The entire Space Shuttle is old. I'll bet a lot of slashdotters don't even remember the Columbia's maiden voyage.

I'm not one to replace things that are working fine, but as I understand it, newer designs could be a whole lot cheaper to operate. So I wonder if pouring more into the Space Shuttle program is the best thing to do.

I'm not saying "let's throw out the space shuttle" but it bothers me that there's apparently nothing in the works with a decent shot at replacing it any time soon. It seems the field of space exploration is becoming antiquated.

Re:More shuttle development?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out SLI (Strategic Launch Initiative), the closest thing to a program intended to replace the space shuttle.

http://slinews.com/

Re:More shuttle development?

[CharlieG]

I can (barely) remember watching Gemini launches on TV - I guess that makes ME old

Re:More shuttle development?

[mpe]

The code in the Shuttle's launch system is old? The entire Space Shuttle is old. I'll bet a lot of slashdotters don't even remember the Columbia's maiden voyage.

The computers didn't work right for that too :)

Re:More shuttle development?

[jafac]

I remember Apollo 11.

I was 2. I remember it because my parents pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night to watch it on TV. The whole week before the launch, they were talking about it and getting me exited about it.

I really have NO other significant childhood memories prior to age 5 or 6.

Re:More shuttle development?

[powerlord]

The entire Space Shuttle is old. I'll bet a lot of slashdotters don't even remember the Columbia's maiden voyage.

Oh I remember the Columbia's maiden voyage.

Came down with chicken-pox that week... considered it a case of serendipity and spent the week home from school and glued to the TV watching mission reports while making a lego model of the space shuttle.

I've got a press pass from that shuttle launch on my wall (long story how I ended up with it). Still makes me smile to look at it.

I'd be surprised if I was the only one who remembered.

Easy solution

[broken]

Hire John Carmack to do the job. He's into rocketry so he gets to learn more about the whole thing, you get a kickass system, and he may even do it for free.

The guy's so good he may do a better job than a bloated team of 400 contractors.

It has to happen sometime

[Post-O-Matic]

You can't keep rig-upgrade all the time. Finding wierd solutions like emulators and buying old hardware.

Will they write an emulator 70's hardware in 2100 too ? Probably not. They point where you upgrade the whole system has to come at some point. Might as well do it now. At least now those chips aren't that old compared to 20 years from now, when NOBODY will know how to deal with them.

Though I don't envy the poor guys who'll have to rewrite that code...

Re:It has to happen sometime

[Prof.Phreak]

But that will replace *working* and *tested* technology with something that *might* not work or have really minor unforeseen bugs that will screw up a few dozen launches.

Especially if the new-and-improved code/system is bigger and more complex than the original.

I think it's better to emulate 70's rock solid and robust code than to create a new buggy version that does the same thing - but has OOP and a few other IT acronyms in its description.

7400

[AlgUSF]

I have a bag full of TTL 7400 chips left over from my undergraduate logic design class!

No money?

[ryochiji]

It's kind of sad how NASA's running out of money when the military gets so much money. Personally, a government that can keep a space shuttle fleet up to date and flying would give me a better sense of security than a government that's eager to go to war. But maybe that's just me.

Re:No money?

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately, oil is better that space knowledge

Re:No money?

[emarkp]

Yeah, fortunatley the US government is more interested in actual security than in your sense of security.

We should all be relieved.

Re:No money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it isn't that NASA has no money. The problem is that NASA has no real way to make an even slightly accurate accounting to Congress about how the money they HAVE is being spent. I know, because I'm working on the project to put a system in place to do just that... IFMP

Re:No money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actual Security?

American spends money on developing an offensive force, their military is much too large to be termed a defense force (Unless you count offense to be the best form of defence).

Having such a large military encourages its use to bully foreign interests. Which leads to resentment, which leads to terrorism. I don't think events such as 9/11 should ever have happened.

But America sure has been trying hard to make itself a target. You can only bully people so much before they fight back.

Re:No money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent up! That is the true reason...

Re:No money?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can only bully people so much before they fight back.

You know, that can be applied in either direction. That is, there is a case to be made that Al Quaeda's attacking civilian targets and intentionally killing thousands of people constitutes "bullying."

Re:No money?

[ryochiji]

> US government is more interested in actual security

I guess it's never ocurred to you that people hate us because of the decisions our government made. We offended a group of people to the point to which some of them felt compelled to bomb us, and you call that actual security? Our government's trying to go to war despite international opposition and that makes you feel secure?
Well, I guess I do have a strange sense of security then.

7400?

[Decimal]

They need a cheap replacement for a 7400? No problem! I have an old 7800 they can have for free. I'll throw in some 2600 games that it can play - StarMaster & Missle Command, that should get them back into orbit in no time, right?

Re:7400?

[freeweed]

If you really do have a 7800 you're giving me away, lemme know and I'll email you my mailing address.

Re:7400?

[Decimal]

Heh, sorry. Was just trying for some +funny Karma. :) I'm a big collector of classic gaming items -- back from the days when games were fun!

64k.

[DarkHelmet]

It has 64k of memory and no room to repair any software bugs

But 64k should be enough for everybody!

Re:64k.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if you have installed more RAM into your brain, you would remember that somebody else had posted this comment already.

Actually... (Re:They should make it open source)

[Simon Carr]

I was thinking this. Why don't they open some of the current code and some of the requirements they need to "the community".

Think of who space enthusiasts are and what a lot of them do; software and hardware development. In a budget crunch a good strategy would be to allow interested hobbyists to write some of the code, and then have NASA's boys peer review it.

7400 chips are hard to find, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

These chips are NOT hard to find. http://www.digikey.com/scripts/us/dksus.dll?PName? Name=296-1723-5-ND

Re:7400 chips are hard to find, huh?

[Prof.Phreak]

They're only interested in the super-expensive custom made 7400 chips, that are supplied by their approved contractors.

I wouldn't be surprised if they spend a few millions on getting a few of those chips.

It's the deep-pocket-NASA, their contractors have subcontractors (and those have sub-sub-contractors). With them, nothing is plain and simple as going to Radio Shack and getting supplies.

Re:7400 chips are hard to find, huh?

[KewlPC]

This is because the parts have to be certified for space. You can't just go to RadioShack and get some 7400s off the shelf, because if cosmic rays flipped a few bits or tripped a few lines, the result could kill the half-dozen astronauts on the shuttle.

NSYNC

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Lance Bass could offer up a solution?

OO?!!!!!

[gilesjuk]

Surely OO is a bit risky for such a thing. They should be looking at Pascal or something. Isn't that what some nuclear power station use? or Fortran?

Re:OO?!!!!!

[MattGWU]

No, they're all big into Ada95. Based on Pascal, so not too far off, though it does have OO capabilities.

Re:OO?!!!!!

[Tablizer]

(* Surely OO is a bit risky for such a thing. *)

Amen Brotha!

oop.ismad.com

Re:OO?!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why OOP Reminds Me of Communism
Cliche-Oriented Programming
Economic communism spread like wildfire in the first half of the 20th century because it had such appealing ideals and ideas. Like OO, these ideals were very seductive on paper. Intellectuals all over the world were drawn in by its concepts in droves. However, the complexities and dynamism of human nature proved not to favor economic communism as a productive model when it hit the road of the real world. It was the test of the real world that deflated the socialism hype, not intellectual analysis for the most part.

-from oop.ismad.com

I LOve it!!! You had me rolling on the floor.

No Names, Please

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Mr. Pink, Mr. White and Mr. Brown.
Thank you.

SNAFU

[djupedal]

NASA has been underdelivering for decades and now someone wants to throw another bandaid on the wound?

Why are we talking about cysts and lesions when the carcass has no head, legs or arms?

Plenty of Room to Fix Bugs

[cheeto]

I can't remember how much core we have left, but rest assured that we have plenty of room to fix bugs. And since we are in the process of replacing the display system with one that does most of its own processing, we are freeing up a large amount of data and code space.

Keep in mind that our patches are usually measured in 16 bit half-words in the single digits.

Re:Plenty of Room to Fix Bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you emulate the environment under Linux?

Re:Plenty of Room to Fix Bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

They could save even more money if they switched from that expensive rocket fuel to regular unleaded gasoline too, I bet.

Sunk Costs / Don't change what works

[dracocat]

From the tone of the article, it sounds as if the writer is more concerned with the money already invested. I understand it is really frustrating to spend a lot of time on a project that doesn't pan out, but upgrading the software on the space shuttle is a serious endevour.

First of all, finding hardware, or having replacement parts made is not a big deal. Schematics exist for all the chips they use, and even low volume reproduction of the chips won't cost more than this new software they are developing.

Secondly, the space shuttle works, it has worked for years. There are major flaws in the entire design of the space shuttle. IMHO the entire space shuttle needs to be redesigned. No software redesign will fix the major flaws of the shuttle.

Lastly, if true OO approaches were used in the development of the software, then most of it should be able to be used for the next generation of shuttle vehicles.

So stop focusing on the narrow application of this software on an outdated Space Shuttle, and look to the future of spacecraft.

Re:Sunk Costs / Don't change what works

[qbed]

In the grand scheme of projects, looking at how much you have already spent on the project is the wrong way to think.

What you should be thinking about is the goals and objectives of the project.

There is a big prior example of this. The Concorde project was kept going years after it was clear that it had largely failed in its goals, simply because so much money had already been spent.

If the project is achieveing its goals, it should be allowed to finish. If not it should be axed, no ifs, no buts.

Space Computing: Some Numbers

[aebrain]

From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald .

Only 58 centimetres square and weighing 50 kilograms, the tiny FedSat satellite is packed with five scientific experiments and all of the instruments required to communicate with Earth during its anticipated three-year life. At the heart of the satellite is a 10MHz ERC-32 processor - a SPARC-based 32-bit RISC processor developed for high-reliability space applications.

The ERC-32 sacrifices processing power for durability and reliability. It uses three chips to process a modest 10 million instructions per second and two million floating-point operations per second - less than 1 per cent of a Pentium 4's capabilities.

The pay-off is reliability: the ERC-32 uses concurrent error-detection to correct more than 95 per cent of errors.

Power-hungry microprocessors such as the Pentium 4, which runs a standard office PC bought off the shelf today, would be an intolerable burden on the solar-powered satellite. The ERC-32 consumes less than 2.25 watts at 5.5 volts.

Designed to survive extreme radiation bursts from solar flares, the ERC-32 can tolerate radiation doses up to 50,000 rad. This is 100 times the lethal dose for humans.

...A team of Australian programmers developed FedSat's onboard software, building on work done in Britain. It is written in Ada-95, a programming language designed for embedded systems and safety-critical software. All it has to work with is 16MB of RAM, 2MB of flash memory for storing the program, a 128K boot prompt and 320MB of DRAM in place of a hard disk that would never survive the launch process. All essential data is stored in three physically different locations.

The software is built in a similar way - lots of internal checks, tell-me-thrice memory, soft-failure-bit-flip-correcting daemons etc. In this case, lives aren't at stake, but the people doing the programming are used to situations where they are.

Re:Space Computing: Some Numbers

[dirtydamo]

The software is built in a similar way - lots of internal checks, tell-me-thrice memory, soft-failure-bit-flip-correcting daemons etc. In this case, lives aren't at stake, but the people doing the programming are used to situations where they are.

And what about the lives of the astronauts on board?

Re:Space Computing: Some Numbers

[cburley]

Only 58 centimetres square and weighing 50 kilograms, the tiny FedSat satellite...

In this case, lives aren't at stake...

And what about the lives of the astronauts on board?

Guess nobody cares about the "little guys" in the aerospace industry anymore....

Re:Space Computing: Some Numbers

[aebrain]

The context was that of software for an unmanned microsatellite, not the shuttle.

Crewed spacecraft have an even more strict set of rules attached to the software development process. Have a look at some of the articles on DO-178B, the software development standard for avionics. Similar issues apply, but even more so.

Look, people - not Geniuses - just normal, everyday programmers - have been making software you can bet your life on for a long time now. We know how to do it even more cheaply than the normal buggy commercial work (though testing is radically expensive and blows out the total cost). There's no need, and no excuse, for BSDs and security problems. None. You just have to have the right tools, the right training, and the right attitude. If you like, the Right Stuff. Here's a quote from that article:

It's strictly an 8-to-5 kind of place -- there are late nights, but they're the exception. The programmers are intense, but low-key. Many of them have put in years of work either for IBM ( which owned the shuttle group until 1994 ), or directly on the shuttle software. They're adults, with spouses and kids and lives beyond their remarkable software program.

That's the culture: the on-board shuttle group produces grown-up software, and the way they do it is by being grown-ups. It may not be sexy, it may not be a coding ego-trip -- but it is the future of software. When you're ready to take the next step -- when you have to write perfect software instead of software that's just good enough -- then it's time to grow up.

People like myself look upon any work over about 7 hours a day more than twice a month as signs that "I personally screwed up", because I'm the guy who sets the schedule, not some PHB. We have lives. We have kids. We have hobbies. And the stuff we do is hard, the systems do a lot more than most commercial apps, and with far fewer memory and CPU resources. It's both incredible fun "boldly going.." and all that, but also a crushing responsibility when we do safety-critical work. People's lives depend on us doing the best possible job we can.

One area I disagree with in the "Right Stuff" article is that the work doesn't involve creativity. This is balderdash - we're doing stuff no-one has ever done before under really tight resource constraints. To get a reliable architecture often requires significant smarts, lateral thinking. Anyone can make a complex solution to a complex problem, the really good guys and gals make solutions so drop-dead simple, obviously-correct and efficient that it's miraculous how much such simple, obvious and readable code actually accomplishes.

Looking at the general world of InfoTech, we see that most programmers out there would rather write the winning entry for the "Obfuscated C" contest than make some software that gets us around the solar system. And that people who make reliable software hit the unemployment queue on project completion, while those making buggy stuff have jobs-for-life in maintenance. Of course, they often have 80-hour weeks too, and are driven by PHBs who know b* all, and can't even take pride in the product, so there is some justice.

Re:Penis is good for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really the combined penis lengths for all the nerds there cannot exeed 6 inches. They prefer to hire crack addicts off the streets to satisfy their anal cravings.

Mr. Brown?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I have to be Mr. Brown?

Re:Mr. Brown?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you're a faggot! Besides, I tried that and they all wanted to be Mr. Pink.

Re:Mr. Brown?!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, girls. It went like so: Pink: why do i have to be Mr. Pink? Old guy: because you're a fucking faggot! Pink: why can't i pick my own color? Old guy: because then you have 3 guys fighting over who wants to be black.

A cheap $150 solution

[Devil's BSD]

Get a TI-89 and write an assembly program to control the space shuttle. The TI-89 runs off a MC68000 chip, and has (almost) a meg of space. That's about the programming power of the Apollo computers in a pocket-sized object--plenty of power to calculate the orbital trajectory/angle of entry/etc. It even has built-in calculus functions in case the astronauts forget the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus :) .

Open source...

[3-22]

Jeez, they should just release the code as open source. It would probably be done in a month, and run KDE too.

Re:Open source...

[Dthoma]

Nah, I'm pretty sure it'd run GNOME.

You are, like, so silly!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you simulate your own personal lifedoesn't mean that people doing productive stuff in the REAL world have to resort to "simulations".

Get a life, you sad sad person.

MOD PARENT UP - ACTUAL INTERESTING LINK INCLUDED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, oh, please, mod him up.

From the page:

FlightLinux is a concept that uses a real-time variation of the open source Linux Operating System for onboard spacecraft use. Onboard Operating systems have evolved from custom code to applications of embedded real-time operating systems. The time has come to go to open source.

400 Contractors???

[serutan]

Some interesting information in the article... like the main reasons for cancelling the project are a lack of significant improvements in safety, reliability, or cost savings over the shuttle program's remaining lifetime. I'm no fan of keeping obsolete systems hobbling along beyond their years, but this reasoning doesn't seem outrageous to me. The outrageous thing is that it took 400 contractors to develop something that won't outperform a 30-year-old system that runs in 64k.

Re:400 Contractors???

[man2525]

I'm not surprised. I interviewed for a junior programming position with CLCS as a subcontractor subcontracting through a subcontractor through yet another subcontactor. I interviewed at the subcontractor's house, where I nervously (1st programming interview) proceeded to screw up a simple "Hello, world!" program. After questioning me on what I would do to sort a list, the guy told me that I was hired (I didn't get the position because the hiring managers were looking for someone with more experience). My interviewer informed me that most of the contractors didn't like the work itself, and that there were a number of restrictions set on the project by KSC engineers who wanted to keep positive control devices (mechanical switches, buttons, etc). I guess I should feel lucky that I didn't get the job.

Re:400 Contractors???

[Dthoma]

It doesn't matter how many people you have working on it, if they don't have the time, the hardware, the money, the motivation, and the right management, then replacing a 30 year old system is a horrible underfunded chore.

Re:Or you could just...crash the shuttle

[buswolley]

and save us the headache of that outdated tin can.
Build something new.

Re:Actually... (Re:They should make it open source

[Midnight Thunder]

I love the idea and would love to see this. It also makes sense, since NASA, like most national space agencies are for the good of human kind.

On the other hand trying to see it from you average government official's point of view, there would be paranoia since, I believe, NASA shares technology with the military and even without the mililtary ties, there would still be fear mungering over 'national security'. Also, your average programmer probably wouldn't have access to the hardware to run and test the stuff on.

Space Shuttle OS

[Nexus Maelstrom]

I have a teacher who actually worked on the operating system for the shuttle. He said the things they had to go through was insane. He said "EVERYTHING" had to be flowcharted before it could be coded. Apparently, they were spending just as much money on draftsmen as they were coders. And everytime they made a change to the software, the flow charts had to be changed. It was insane. Eventually, the coders talked them into dropping the flow charts until the code was finished.

As for who these guys are, (the coders), they would hang out in the control rooms and wait till tour groups came by. Then they would run around screaming and scare the tourists!!!

Apparently, they had some fun before the DOD got involved with NASA.

port the software? ... try hardware!

[Jucius Maximus]

"Now, imagine you take modern commodity hardware (which changes periodically - look at how often Intel silently release new steppings of their CPUs). You're not going to have a guarantee of consistency there. You're going to have to boot an OS off it - and even the simplest RTOSes are still much, much bigger than the whole platform currently. Then you need an emulator. Then you need the system. And the only problem you've solved with all that work is the unavailablility of the old hardware - you still have a old machine language on a tiny platform which can't be easily extended for new functionality."

Might I suggest using FPGAs to emulate the hardware old system so the software doesn't have to be thrown out?

Assuming that circuit layouts are available for these old chips, it would be a piece of cake to emulate them in VHDL (a hardware description language) because they are comparatively simple to today's integrated circuits. Once the chip descriptions are written in VHDL, it would be relatively easy to 'port' the hardware over to a new FPGA if the old one dies or whatever. Then it would not be necessary to truly port or re-code any of the currently working code, and it would be much easier to fix bugs and extend it because you don't have the memory and speed limitations of the old system.

Support for your theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill could buy this little toy for CASH, and either of Larry or Scott could probably rake together the cash to fund it single-handed.

Re:Support for your theory

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a growing undercurrent of people like you who think that space elevators are right around the corner. Even if nanotechnology was around tomorrow to make the vast quantities of fantastic materials needed for a space elevator, politics will lag for decades. Arthur C. Clarke was right..... but people are still laughing.

Re:Support for your theory

[David Roundy]

I just read the article you linked, and am afraid the scientists quoted are a bit overoptimistic. They assume the space elevator will be built of nanotube composite materials which have not yet been invented, and then assumes that these (hypothetical) materials can be mass produced at very low cost.

We may indeed be able to make tons of nanotubes very soon, but we have yet to be able to make a macroscopic nanotube thread (say, the diameter of a human hair, and three centimeters long) of any size which is anywhere close to the strength of nylon.

Re:state of the art?

[Alex Belits]

C _is_ the state of the art of procedural languages for over 30 years. It's not like such a simple thing has a lot of room for improvement, there are other areas where new languages can be created, but honestly how many ways are there to do things like preprocessor, functions, variables, etc.?

OO languages' authors may feel that they are doing something more "advanced" but in fact they are working on a completely ortogonal area of development. And most of them are far from C elegance (ex: Stroustrup doesn't even understand C design properly, so C++ is even more inconsistent than what its origin would suggest, and I don't even consider a rotting pile of shit that its "standard" libraty is, to be a part of language), or are simply badly designed (ex: Java), or are not languages but eclectic messes made by including specific librariers' and object models design into the language itself (ex: C#).

This is the area where we can use a lot of progress until it will reach the state where we can keep call the same thing "state of the art" for 30 years, but I won't hold my breath -- OO language design is dead, everyone is just making "OO" languages as various vehicles to promote their narrow-minded ideas. So I won't be surprised if Stroustrup's mess will remain the most useful semi-OO language for the next 30 years, too (but those libraries HAVE TO GO, and so should the attitude that students should learn that atrocity without studying C first).

The only reliable piece of the Shuttle

[HuguesT]

At the time of the Challenger inquiry, the late physicist Richard Feynman was part of the investigation committee. He found that most of NASA at the time was in full delusional mode about how reliable the Shuttle really was.

The only exception was the computer systems group, in particular the software side. They had metrics, procedures and rigour.At the time of the enquiry the hardware was already old.

It's the attitude that counts, not the hardware, not the methodology of the month. OO is not going to solve NASA's problem, it's going to be difficult. Myself I'd just make sure that the hardware would always be available, and not change a thing.

Something smells wrong

[Spazmania]

Over two hundred million dollars and six years of work have been spent on CLCS to date. CLCS is roughly 70% finished. [...] The CLCS main development has roughly two more years to go. The exact schedule is not completely predictable, nor is its final cost.

On a "modern techniques" replacement for a program than ran on a machine with a 16-bit address space? Do I detect the stench of committee designed software with a whiff of low bidder? Yikes!

LIES! LIES! LIES!

[Anonymous Coward]

They prefer to hire crack addicts off the streets to satisfy their anal cravings.

That cannot be true. Most, if not almost all crack addicts oon the street are older than 8 years old. That alone would disqualify them.

There are way too many space enthusiasts like me..

[jsse]

-- i = i + 1;
++ i++;
++ /* That's one small step for i, one giant leap for mankind. */

Re:A cheap $150 solution-HP calculators

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.urbanlegends.com/science/hp_calculators _on_space_shuttle.html

Nope they use HP calculators.

HP41's and HP 48's.

Much better machines.

Ooops....

[InadequateCamel]

I forgot to mention that I am unsure of how the systems run today. I know that back in the Challenger days it was something like this, and I am hoping (only for the integrity of the previous post, of course) that it is still like this today.

[OT] small linux

[Mr Z]

I actually did run Linux on a 2MB RAM system (a 386 SX16). That was back in the 0.99.14 days, and I was using SLS 1.03.

My main machine was a 486DX33 with 4MB a the time. Everything fit fine on a 90MB partition when I was first getting started. Later, I got a 340MB drive and installed X. X was a bit painful until I managed to upgrade to a whopping 8MB RAM. Of course, olvwm has a much smaller footprint than GNOME or KDE, and there wasn't a web worth browsing in 1994.

--Joe

Re:[OT] small linux

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is not even small - in 1985 I could run AmigaOS (fully multitasking OS, with complete GUI system) in a mere 256K of RAM. Admittedly it was running out of a 256K ROM, so total memory requirements were more like 512K.

Before that people were running windowing systems on C64's (GEOS) or MSX's (HiBrid, Ease), but I don't know if those qualify as real OS's.

Re:[OT] small linux

[Mr Z]

Oh, I know it's not really "small" in the grand scheme of things. It *is* small for a box running X, though.

Incidentally, those early Macs had only 128K of RAM. They weren't fully multitasking, but they did have a full (monochrome) GUI.

--Joe

weight ain't the issue.

[Mr Z]

nitpick: Weight doesn't matter quite as much for the ground-based launch system, which is what this article's about.

As for using Java and all that: I don't know if you actually read any of the details, but the system must cope with upwards of 50000 events with millisecond response times. This argues for a highly real time, perhaps rather distributed processing. In many ways, it argues for many smaller, simpler subsystems, just so you can keep the predictability! Java is NOT the way to go for such a system. Having a mondo mega centralized system on a super-powerful CPU with lots of RAM is a recipe for disaster unless you were extremely careful. A room full of 6502s each dedicated to a narrow task would cope with this problem much better.

Don't make me trot out the Engineer and the Toaster again...

--Joe

make it an open source "CALLING ALL GEEKS!" proj.

[PlainBlack]

No matter what the language, no matter what I had to learn. If I could contribute in any small way to the code that ran part of the space program I'd spend all my free time on it. NASA should consider calling upon the OSS community.

the code necessary to control the launch

[puckhead]

Launching rockets into space is more of an engineering problem than a software problem. Newton figured out how to do it 500 years ago.

Money saving idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

...NASA could billions by deorbiting all personal after their mission so that they burn on the atmosphere. No suits needed, have them jump out an airlock with a little solid rocket to deorbit them as they exhale their last breath. Strip all of the trash and excess stuff to them and land the Shuttle on auto. Think of all of the weight it would save and supplies and fuel. And payroll, too. It would however, make recuriting new people harder, but every plan has it's bad points.

Maybe not lives, but lots of money

[dido]

The software is built in a similar way - lots of internal checks, tell-me-thrice memory, soft-failure-bit-flip-correcting daemons etc. In this case, lives aren't at stake, but the people doing the programming are used to situations where they are.

Not only that, a single space launch of even a fairly small satellite still costs over a billion dollars. If there's a software glitch, it could render the satellite totally inoperable, and I doubt that these engineers want to tell their source of funding that a glitch they're responsible for just wasted the whole launch...

Which is also why Microsoft doesn't do aerospace embedded systems. :) Whoops, Satellite Redmond I just had a BSOD...

Re:Maybe not lives, but lots of money

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the failure of Mariner 1 c. 1962?

Someone left off a full stop of the end of a line of Fortran...

Re:Maybe not lives, but lots of money

[aebrain]

We're getting a free ride along with the ADEOS II megasat (the Japanese get access to some of the data in return), but we're still talking significant money for development. And you're right re funding: it's no exaggeration to say that the future of Australia's space programme is at stake.

As regards Microsoft doing space/embedded systems, another quote from the original article:

"The system must be ductile - bending, not breaking - when things go wrong. In space no one can press Control/Alt/ Delete."

A neat quote, even if I say so myself.

A. Brain, Rocket Scientist

Re:Actually... (Re:They should make it open source

[zaffir]

That's all well and dandy until my code with a well-obfuscated backdoor is put into use, and i root the ISS.

Re:port the software? ... try hardware!

[dakoda]

it's such a simple solution. In fact, for reliability, they could probably fit 2 or more of their current systems on comodity FPGAs, and then use a couple separate chips, and then run them in parallel. when one doesnt seem to agree with the others, time to reimage or replace. i dont know why this takes such an undue amount of resources...

emulate? and not total cancellation

[dbrower]

If you read the articles, you find it's not a total cancellation, but a scaleback from an big integration to one that will just replace the launch operations.

And to those who talk about emulation as the answer, that is only part of the problem. (1) They'd still have the same address space limitations in an emulated platform. (2) they'd still have a hard time finding people to work on it, and a long training period to get them up to speed. They really need to migrate the platform, even if they only replace the current function..

-dB

use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[g4dget]

Trying to write such a system in C/C++ strikes me as rather stupid. It is extremely hard to write reliable software in C/C++. That may not matter much for desktop applications, but it matters when billions of dollars are in the balance.

They obviously don't need very high performance, since it runs on 1970s hardware, but they do need high reliability and low development costs.

That means that they should be using a safe, secure high-level language. Something with a virtual machine might be a good idea so that it will be easy to adapt to new hardware platforms: you verify the virtual machine on the new machine and then have reasonable confidence that your code runs.

If they want something in widespread use, a home-built Java byte-code interpreter (not a JIT--they are too buggy) might be a reasonable choice--it's well specified and there are lots of people who know how to program it. They should probably avoid JNI like the plague and instead add new bytecodes for I/O and communications and verify them the same way that they do the virtual machine itself.. VLISP might be another good choice--or at least a source of ideas for how to implement a verified Java interpreter--DARPA already has paid for its development.

And they should hire someone who doesn't recommed COTS with C++, lest we see the next shuttle go up in flames again.

Re:use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[vrai]

It is very easy to program C/C++ without memory leaks/seg faults just as long as you have some grasp of software engineering. I've been programming for many years and can now happily churn out C/C++ applications (many of which are multi-threaded) which (post-testing) never suffer unrecoverable errors. They also require less CPU time/memory than their Java equivalents. The myth that C/C++ is difficult is spread by poor programmers and people with a vested interest in other languages (e.g. Sun with Java, and MS with .NET).

Just for the record I do use Java a lot (along with Perl and Python) and it is a nice language. But it is no 'easier' than C++, its just that the bugs are less obvious (usually performance related) and so seem to be less serious.

Re:use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[Anonymous Coward]

It is extremely hard to write reliable software in C/C++

No: it is easy to write UNreliable software if your methodology is not up to scratch. Given proper techniques and rigour, writing reliable software in C++ is *easy*.

Re:use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[g4dget]

I've been programming for many years and can now happily churn out C/C++ applications (many of which are multi-threaded) which (post-testing) never suffer unrecoverable errors.

And if you stay in the business for many more years, you'll realize the hubris and folly of that statement.

The myth that C/C++ is difficult

I made no statement to the effect of whether C/C++ is hard or not. I actually think C is a pretty easy language to learn. But it can be hard to write reliable software in otherwise easy languages, and it can be hard to verify compilers for easy languages.

In fact, C++ is one of the most difficult languages to verify a compiler for, and I have personally tracked down a number of bugs in both commercial and open source compilers. The fact that C++ compilers are hard to verify alone would be a reason not to use the language on critical tasks, even all other issues aside.

Re:use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[g4dget]

No: it is easy to write UNreliable software if your methodology is not up to scratch. Given proper techniques and rigour, writing reliable software in C++ is *easy*.

Given that you are so brilliant, go work for Microsoft or Netscape or any of a number of big companies, who evidently lack the "proper technique and rigour" to produce reliable software. If it's so easy, you should be able to fix their numerous bugs and problems in no time.

Re:use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That means that they should be using a safe, secure high-level language.

Indeed. So where does this rubbish about Java bytecode come from? You're already going to have to verify the processor and the compiler output. Why introduce a third level (a VM) where things can go wrong?

And they should hire someone who doesn't recommed COTS with C++, lest we see the next shuttle go up in flames again.

That was just a gratuitous and offensive swipe. The Challenger shuttle went up due to mechanical problems, not software bugs.

You seem to be one of those people who doesn't like C++, and therefore lumps it together with C and/or has a dig at it whenever possible. It's up to you whether you like a language or not, but please spare the rest of us the ill-informed language wars, OK?

Re:use a verified virtual machine and compiler

[geekoid]

"They obviously don't need very high performance, since it runs on 1970s hardware, but they do need high reliability and low development costs. "

Don't confuse "not needing a processor that wastes millions of cycles a second" with "low" performance.

Then need to work with very percse units of time, and have a exceptionally high success rate, fault tolerant and correcting, minimal suseptability to SUEs. The is high performance, as far as industry is concerned.

Re:Hey, O'Keefe, look what I found on SourceForge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha...it's funny because most of the projects on slashdot are in planning or pre-alpha stages, and never release any code! Especially the really interesting projects or the one that sounds like it exactly fills a need. He's a genius! Mod him up!

Why not write a 7400 emulator?

[JaguarsRevenge]

Seems like an obvious answer to a silly question (i.e. How can we get more 7400's real cheap?)

Re:Why not write a 7400 emulator?

[Anonymous Coward]

7400 was just an example. A 7400 is actually just a quad 2 input nand.

Re:Why not write a 7400 emulator?

[shepd]

Ooooh, oooh, let me try:

q1 = (!(x1 & y1));
q2 = (!(x2 & y2));
q3 = (!(x3 & y3));
q4 = (!(x1 & y1));

"By George, I think he's got it!"

NASA == Smithsonian

[MrIcee]

Just my .05 cents (if that)
I used to work for GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center). It was wonderful... many years ago.

Anywho... they had *shitloads of unbelievable equipment... ages old... *name that piece of hardware*. We could wander from building to building, and look/view/see the equipment.

Lots were there because they were running projects that took many many years to see results, thus they could not upgrade *in-the-field* because it would stop the project.

Indeed, part of GSFC when I was there was to backup Houston on launches. When they upgraded they built a totally new floor above the existing backup, and on a *grand* day they transfered power, with one big switch, from one floor to the next - why? because they had to. It had to be well tested and well checked before it could be put in live production, yet the existing systems had to be on-line to backup Houston.

It was fantastic walking through the various buildings and rooms... I've seen equipment I've no idea what it did. For example, one room had these rather large, circular platforms with clear plastic or glass domes. Inside the domes where flat plates - think silicon... but BIG.. 1 1/2 ft octogon. Stacked with about 2 inches spacing, about 10 of them. I'd say, looking at the room, some very old old old type of RAM.

That's the wonder of NASA :)

Re:port the software? ... try hardware!

[LinuxInDallas]

Problem is the hardware is the least of the concerns. When I worked at Raytheon we had similar problems. We had systems written in fortran/assembly and hardware using discrete logic ICs. Redoing the hardware was simple and we often replaced a board full of ICs with a single Xilinx FPGA. But who cares about the logic ICs? Redoing that was as simple as redrawing the schematic. Maintaining the software written for a PDP-11 was the hard part.

ISS - we should have had a Mars mission instead

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS is a relic of the first generation of US space plans, going back to the 1952 Collier's articles. The assumption was that to further explore the solar system you'd need (a) a reusable shuttle to go to and from orbit (b) a space station as a research facility and also as a base for assembling and testing space-only ships (c) said space-only ships that would leave and return to the space station with crew being transferred by the shuttle to and from earth, ie the station would be a sort of orbital railway terminus or airport.

This was sensible plan if you were looking at a large number of flights per year and/or setting up say regular interplanetary shuttles. *However* it is totally inapplicable to the current situation where *we haven't even been back to the moon in thirty years let alone get to Mars let alone make out-of-LEO human travel routine*.

There is no way in the world that the money will be made available to allow a manned-space flight schedule that would effectively use these facilities; it would make Apollo's budget look like that of the proverbial chook raffle.

What *should* have been done after the fall of communism was a joint US/Russian Mars program. The Russians had the heavy lift vehicle (Energia), the experience with long-duration space living and well-advanced Mars plans. The US had the experience from Apollo in control systems, rendezvous and building landers and the money. An enhanced Energia (or two) launching a Russio-US crew in a US-designed spaceship and Mars lander would have been a far more effective use of the money and skills on both sides, and would really have reignited world interest in manned space flight. If Mars was still inappropriate, they should have looked at a big, long duration moon mission with a plan to set up a base there. For a one-off effort (initially) there would be no point in having the ISS. And if you really wanted a test space station you'd launch it in one go Skylab-style from Energia.

Frankly given the duration of the Russian space-station missions I don't see what else we can learn of relevance to surviving a Mars mission. It certainly doesn't give us experience in the *big* potential show-stopper - protecting against radiation exposure during the trip and solar flares once you get outside the Van Allen belts.

[Finished Stephen Baxter's fabulous novel "Voyage" over the weekend. Alternative history of NASA going to Mars in 1985 instead of building the Shuttle. Read it and weep...]

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is having Space Station "cost overruns" which are utterly dwarfed by the $350 BILLION we spend every year on Social Security, which will go into the red in about 10 years. Someone earning $50,000 a year sees SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR go to a program which will run out of money in a couple of decades.

Schools have no money (classes in trailers, perpetually). We're constantly running or almost running deficits. People hand over 40 percent of their gross income in taxes, a figure which increases every year. I'll guess that 30 percent of the working population is unemployed or seriously underemployed.

Yet there is NEVER any money for anything worthwhile, like a new launch platform. And yes, the space program is worthwhile.

7400s

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is built from mid 70's technology and features SSI chips like 7400's...which are getting hard to find."

I have a whole bag of them right here for my Digital Design class. The receipt says $14. Hard to find?

Re:7400s

[drbart]

you probably don't have 7400S, or 7400LS, or 7400M (military) or whatever technology is actually in there.

today's CMOS stuff probably doesn't cut it. also, who knows what arcane parts like 74LS166 shift registers they used that aren't in your little bag.

speed is also an issue. too fast is as bad as too slow in some cases.

Re:port the software? ... try hardware!

[rodgerd]

Replacing it can be harder. I used to work in newspaper publishing; the core editorial systems of one employer were old ATEX J11 systems with a proprietary, tightly integrated OS and application suite. Over time, various aspects of the system were offloaded to more modern systems (eg, PostScript output and integration with graphics from desktop systems had dedicated AIX systems, imagesetters driven by PostScript RIPs, dumb terminals run from dedicated I/O boards replaced with terminal emulators on the desktop).

Despite all this tweaking, the crufty old systems stayed in place. Why? Well, on each of these old boxes, we could support 25-30 journos and the systems just worked, grinding out newspapers day after day.

People kept talking about replacing them, not least because we had to train up operators and engineers on them every time new staff came in, parts were hard to come by (the standards-not-compatible SCSI and ethernet interfaces were picky about what they talked to, and the filesystem could only address 600 MB of disk per system), and they used huge amounts of power and floor space.

For the three years I worked there and in the three years hence no-one has been able to deliver an editorial system that just works. When vendors rolled their rigged demos in, they crash. The major vendors like CyberGraphics and ATEX couldn't point to successful implementations of their new systems producing a decent number of newspapers on the basis of more than one edition per day.

Would it have been nice to have a Unix or Windows based system? Sure. Reduced overheads and training burdens, able to buy the latest and greatest hardware, and so on. But no-one could actually deliver something that worked better than the crufty old J11 systems.

NASA are probably in a similar bind; it's a very familiar problem: old systems developed by tight, focused, skilled teams and developed over the years are very, very hard to replace.

Re:Actually... (Re:They should make it open source

[jericho4.0]

Somewhere an NASA'a very large website are tons of schematics and code used in the shuttle. I'm not sure if it's opensource, but nasa has historiclly been generous with the work the do. Witness Donald Beckers ethernet drivers for Linux (probably most of them, in fact) and the Bewolfe stuff.

weight and power

[drbart]

software is only part of the story. if the shuttle is running on 7400 series TTL, its computers are using up too much space, too much weight, and *way* too much power.

all of these are multiplied in severity by the fuel needed to lift it (and the fuel needed to lift the extra fuel).

the shuttle is only one generation beyond "spam in a can" and is a very inefficient way of taking things to orbit. nasa has to innovate or get out of the way.

Nooooo kidding.!

[NerveGas]

"State of the Art" is a good way to run your pocket book into the ground. Jumping on the newest, fanciest programming language doesn't usually make a business successful.

Here's yet another example: My company's (former) largest competitor invested *millions* into Sun hardware and development in Java. Why? "State of the Art". And guess what! With all of their "state of the art" infrastructure, their system was still slow as molasses.

What did we do? We spent less than a tenth of what they did to develop with Perl on x86 servers. Our site handles huge traffic loads pretty effectively, and we did it without running ourselves to the bankruptcy court.

steve

Hey shit for brains

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't an urban legend.

There's a separate avionics upgrade

[Animats]

The Space Shuttle's flight computers (not the ground checkout system mentioned in the article) have already been upgraded once, and there's another $405 million upgrade in progress, planned for completion in 2006.

NASA is currently struggling with obtaining a reasonably modern rad-hard CPU. The market is so dinky that nobody wants to bother with it. But they have been able to retrofit flat panel displays, at least.

Re:Hey, O'Keefe, look what I found on SourceForge.

[mark_space2001]

So what's the next phase?

"2. Arguing over phase 1. Time frame: 3 to 5 years."

80's technology was the best

[XNormal]

I used to work with military electronics and found that the best gear was always from the 80s. The stuff from the 60s and 70s (yes, some of that is still in service) was too primitive. The 90s hardware was too complicated and suffered from unreliable software.

In the 80s the microcontroller technology was just good enough to embed a processor with 64k of ROM full of finely crafted code written by a single programmer and it always just worked, perfectly, every time.

Recruit volunteers!

[KC7GR]

If NASA's budget is hurting so badly, why not swallow a bit of pride and recruit help from fans of the space program who may also happen to be hardware and software engineers?

Perhaps the crew at, say, ham radio organizations like AMSAT, or other groups that already combine volunteer engineering effort with an interest in space exploration, would be happy to help out with modernizing the systems. I wonder if anyone's asked them?

NASA would, of course, keep enough engineering staff around to check the improvements out, but why limit themselves to paid labor if the resource to pay is drying up?

Re:Maybe not lives, but lots of money-watchdog.

[Anonymous Coward]

" 'The system must be ductile - bending, not breaking - when things go wrong. In space no one can press Control/Alt/ Delete.' "

Nice quote, but real embedded systems DO have a reset. It's called a watchdog circuit. If the circuit is not periodically refreshed, it will count down to zero and reset the computer to a known state.

Re:make it an open source "CALLING ALL GEEKS!" pro

[JimPooley]

Yeah. I'd trust my life to a bunch of geeks with no clear design principles.

And why the hell not?

[the grace of R'hllor]

How can a paradigm be risky? It is a way of looking at data and the operations performed on them. Proper application of a sound paradigm (ie., good code) is all that matters; no paradigm is inherently evil[1].

Using Java might(/would) be risky. But OO isn't Java.

[1]: Except functional programming. Gah.

using GNU software, too

[g4dget]

Note that they are most likely using GNU software. Here is a list of the software development environments for these chips, and Here is the European Space Agency's web page for the tools and emulator.

Re:using GNU software, too

[aebrain]

You're correct, GNAT 3.13p. Anyone with mod points, please give this guy one for "Good Deduction"

high radiation

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of cosmic radiation which is needed to flip a bit anywhere in the circuit, even inside the processor is very low. todays 2GHz processors can even crash in an airplane because of the high frequency it works and tho low voltage levels it uses.

Re: A question for rocket scientists

[guybarr]

They obviously don't need very high performance, since it runs on 1970s hardware, but they do need high reliability and low development costs

this raizes an interesting question: how much better would a rocket with fast-response feedback mechanisms be ?

and what are the time-scales involved ?

how much can you raize efficiency and reliability (automated problem detection and solving) with better computing ?

would a "real-time" (at the time-scales involved) automated simulation and analysis of the machinery involved (using inputs from the hardware) be beneficial at all ? how ?

Moores law and public funds.

[jericho4.0]

from the nasa website;

New upgraded general-purpose computers (AP-101S) will replace the existing GPCs aboard the space shuttle orbiters in late 1988 or early 1989. The upgraded computers allow NASA to incorporate more capabilities into the orbiters and apply advanced computer technologies that were not available when the orbiter was first designed. The new computer design began in January 1984, whereas the older design began in January 1972. The upgraded GPCs provide 2.5 times the existing memory capacity and up to three times the existing processor speed with minimum impact on flight software. They are half the size, weigh approximately half as much, and require less power to operate.

It would seem they're falling a little behind Moore's law.

CLCS has definantly been cancelled

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the news headlines on TV RECENTLY was that NASA wanted to know whether anybody from the public wanted to give them extra pre-186 cpus to build on there massive network of pre-186 computers.

They could have put it on a paying basis...

[garyok]

So NASA are facing a budget crunch, huh? Well here's a thought: good. That should shake management out of their complacency. They could have been taking paying astronauts up at $20m a pop, but they aren't. How many software upgrades would a single self-financed crewman (or crewwoman - no need to be sexist) have paid for?

When the Shuttle was still just a concept they claimed that the crew wouldn't be super-fit fighter pilots, just ordinarily fit men and women. But they never made the cultural conversion to allow that to happen - it's still fighter pilots and PhDs on the shuttle (check out the crew for STS-112, if proof is required).

What about the dumb, fat gimps that cough up their taxes every year? Don't they get a ride-along if they want one? What are they? Too stupid to go, but dumb enough to pay? How long's that going to last for? You could ask for a ride-along in a cop car, but I guess it's too much to expect that NASA would realise that it's a publicly-funded instution and beholden to the people in exactly the same way.

Now, I'm not saying that they have to give a lift to every spud with $20m in their back pocket, but a flat refusal to even entertain the idea of self-financed crewmen is nothing but profound institutional arrogance. Take their money and give them the groundside training. If they don't make the grade then can their ass and keep the bucks. If they do make the grade then NASA still makes a tidy profit and has another trained astronaut on their books. Win-win.

Maybe, when a few more engineers get pink-slipped, the ones that are left will start pulling out their calculators and pointing out to management that NASA really needs that money.

Functional programming?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Um... Functional programming might be a much more appropriate tool for this job than any OO language I know. And I program C++ for a living. :-)

Degrees of reliability

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Given proper techniques and rigour, writing reliable software in C++ is *easy*.

That really depends on your definition of reliability. If you're talking about things like buffer overflows and memory leaks, then yes, good basic programming technique in C++ makes it a far more powerful tool than most give it credit for. OTOH, C++ compilers are complex and buggy, and the imperative rather than declarative nature of the language makes verification of algorithms much harder than it might be. There is still plenty of scope for unreliable C++, on the scales we're talking about here.

In a case like this, you could well afford to go for a more advanced language and make sure you've got a well-trained development team and a verified compiler. The programming world has better tools than C++ available, but pragmatism puts them beyond mainstream use for the time being, which is why C++ remains such a useful tool. In this case, though, you have both the resoures and the motivation to use better.

Best being the enemy of the good, again

[Observer]

Caveat: I am not a rocket scientist, nor an architect of safety-critical systems, just someone who has put in a lot of time over the years on low-level code where reliability and performance (in that order) were essentials.

It strikes me that this is exactly the sort of project where you don't want to attempt to construct an ambitious, all-singing, all-dancing, state of the art, eighth wonder of the world. This misses the point about what is actually needed. Instead, you go for something as simple and straightforward as you can design which will have the capacity to do the job and continue doing the job for the forseeable future. It needs to be simple so that you can analyse its behaviour and failure modes with a high degree of confidence. You can push the sexy bells and whistles out to helper boxes, but the core systems must 'just work'. And technology that's far enough behind the bleeding edge for its characteristics to be well understood is definitely a Good Thing in these situations.

Remember the old engineering rule of thumb: "when in doubt, make it stout, out of things you know about".

Good Idea, But Java is TOO complex, Use FORTH

[NZheretic]

I know the Java JVM is alreasy stack based , but is is far too complex to for the generated code to be verified. Stick with a very simple FORTH based stack with three data stack, long (64) int, Floating point ( 80/128? ). Note, no strings at all, all object/Array access via int syscalls.

FYI: The UML is not a Methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

For those that clicked on the link to the OMG's UML web site, the UML is not a methodology -- it is a notation. The RUP, OPEN, or XP are methodologies. The UML only describes a meta-model for capturing the static and dynamic object-based model. That's it -- nothing more, nothing less. So, please, for those of you who insist on commenting on OO technologies, languages, and methodologies, plesae get your facts straight. Of course, it would help if the editors of Slashdot would do the same ...

NASA to use MAME

[qurob]

Yeah, I can just see it...SPACESH.ROM :)

Still going strong in the '90s and post-2000

[Andy Dodd]

You just don't see it.

What was "state of the art" in the '80s is now ubiquitous and hidden from the end user.

Ever found a bug in your portable Nomad MP3 player (The flash-based ones, not any of the disk-based ones - Although the disk ones are still pretty strong)

Has your car ever shut down because its computer crashed? (Note: Hardware failure doesn't count, although automotive ECU failure is RARE unless you've done something to screw with its cooling.)

What about your VCR?

These are all cases of coding like you described - Fitting as much as possible into as little space as possible. In Lucent's (now Avaya) business communications division, there was (maybe still is) a raging debate on whether the usability benefits of using two LEDs rather than one justified the *pennies* of extra cost on an item that sold for a few hundred dollars. In a cost-cutting environment that intensive, you're not going to spec a processor with 8k of flash and 2k RAM when a processor with 2k/256 bytes will do. (Note - Popular microcontroller such as the Atmel AVR, Microchip PIC, Motorola 68HC11, etc. all are in this range.)

And it's quite easy for a single programmer to do all of this. I've seen CD-based MP3 players developed in a few weeks by a team of two college students for their Microcontrollers course taking 3-4 other classes at the same time.

Re:Still going strong in the '90s and post-2000

[XNormal]

You just don't see it.

What I see very well is products that don't satisfy their intended audience because their embedded software sucks. This is happening more often than 12 years ago.

Why is this happening? My guess is that since the hardware is much more powerful engineers are tempted to try to do much more in each product. The problem is that quality software development management hasn't caught up with the increase in hardware capacity.

In other words, engineers have lost the ability to think simple.

What was "state of the art" in the '80s is now ubiquitous and hidden from the end user.

It's apparently so well hidden that it does not affect overall customer satisfaction.

Has your car ever shut down because its computer crashed?

No, but it has been doing really wierd things with the idle RPMs on cold start and in five visits to the garage the mechanic has never been able to pinpoint the problem. Resetting the computer helps for while, though.

These are all cases of coding like you described - Fitting as much as possible into as little space as possible.

Sure there are, but there are also many cases where an embedded device gets a 32 bit RISC cpu with a few megabytes of flash ROM, a few hundred ks of RAM, a realtime operating system, multiple threads, multiple programmers, bloatware, bugs, endlessly stretching schedules, etc when a 8 bit micro with 32k of of ROM would have been enough..

Re:Still going strong in the '90s and post-2000

[Andy Dodd]

If you're having idle problems, then almost surely your computer is being fed bad data (i.e. a sensor is bad or something is wrong that's causing wacked data to be reported by the sensors). Many mechanics are clueless at diagnosing such problems. If he's simply resetting your computer to fix the problem, go get a new mechanic.

Probably either one of the sensors in your throttle body is going bad, or the idle air control motor. Could also be cracked/leaky vacuum lines, when they start going all SORTS of weird shit starts happening - How old is your car, what make/model?

Open-source it

[jungd]

Throw it up on source-forge and invite anyone to help finishing writing it! I'm sure many would be thrilled to be able to say a little piece of their code is responsible for launching a shuttle.

NASA could just try to sustain a team responsible for writing, maintain and running test cases over the code so they could still be confident it works as specified.

bullying

[Eugene O'Neil]

Yes, but so could firing guided missiles into a random chemical plant in order to divert attention from a presidential sex scandal. America has done a lot of awful things to the people of the middle east, since at least the 1960s if not earlier... looking back on it all, I find it amazing that it took them this long to hit us back on our home territory.

What I don't understand is the people who reacted to 9/11 by saying "clearly we have not bombed the shit out of the middle east ENOUGH! Bombing them even more must be the solution to all of our problems!" Duh, Bombing the middle east every alternate thursday is what got us into this mess in the first place! Bombing them more will create MORE PROBLEMS!

I only see two ways to bring a permanent end to this mess: pull all military forces out of the middle east, stop meddling in their politics, and leave them with only themselves to blame for their problems... or escalate the conflict to it's logical conclusion, and ruthlessly exterminate every man, woman, and child in the middle east with hydrogen bombs.

I prefer the first method, but even the second method is better than a wishy-washy comprimise where we kill just enough of them to piss them off even more, ensuring that they will hit us back sooner or later. If we are going to kill them, let's at least do a proper job of it!

Notes from the front

[schnitzi]

I worked there for a few years, ending in 1994. It was amazing to see the "technology" in use in the firing room:

The computer screens all used ASCII graphics, and eight colors, including the infamous cyan. (Aside: does anyone who isn't in computer science even know what cyan is?)

You really don't think of multiple shift keys (e.g. Ctrl-, Alt-, Meta-, etc.) as a new technology, but it's something that hadn't been thought up yet at the time they installed the firing room computers. So what you see is, they had multiple different-function keyboards stacked on top of each other, so as to be able to invoke multiple commands.

The printer was amazing -- it used mimeograph fluid and produced wet -- soaking wet -- purplish printouts. You had to wait several minutes for them to dry.

As laughable as it seems to see the old tech in use, it is important to remember that there is a considerable amount of time, money, and lives at stake on these launches -- so much so that nightmares were not uncommon among the people working in this environment. As such, it is a extremely dangerous process to change out any of the hardware or software in use. So much can be lost during the inevitable process of working the kinks out of a new system.

And People Wonder Why I Despise NASA

[Peahippo]

These news items should say it all. What do NASA engineers eat, the design documents from past projects? What on (or off) Earth is so difficult engineering-wise about piecemeal replacement of an existing system, even entire redesigns? Don't engineers spend time monitoring the obsolescence of their own equipment, and make plans to replace them?

NASA already blew through "several hundred million dollars" on the first replacement system called CORE. They "threw the software away" after the project was killed. This fact alone shows how wasteful and inept the NASA organization is. All of Challenger's recovered remains are stored in in some bunker or silo; these remains will never fly again, although they can be examined again. BUT ... but some mag tapes in a multimillion-dollar project were deemed not worth archiving, even though the software (even the tapes) can be examined and re-used, and in fact should be looked at again when the present system must needs be replaced.

So now NASA is getting ready to shitcan the CLCS, probably having judged that it is time to kill the project ... after all, several hundred million dollars more have been spent, and that's enough waste for one project.

If I had my druthers, I'd crack NASA open like corporate Chapter 7, and sell off the pieces to the public. Then all of those so-called engineers (who probably spend their time reporting on the reporting procedures of the Department of Departmental Oversight) would have to do real work.

(I had a more qualitative posting in mind, but while typing I got more and more pissed off. Sorry.)

Re:make it an open source "CALLING ALL GEEKS!" pro

[Anonymous Coward]

as opposed to slave labour H1B contractors (400 of them!) which are already waay overdue on budget/competion and time.
congratulations. you obviously made the right choice.

Easy solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Verify the assembly generated by
the compiler. It's all that matters,
in the end.

Re:port the software? ... try hardware!

[ncc74656]

Assuming that circuit layouts are available for these old chips, it would be a piece of cake to emulate them in VHDL (a hardware description language) because they are comparatively simple to today's integrated circuits.

How much of what's in the system is really not currently available? They only mentioned 7400-series logic...variations (74LS, 74HCT, etc.) of that are readily available from companies such as DigiKey and Mouser, last time I checked. For what's not available, I'd think that old databooks would have functional descriptions and/or block diagrams from which VHDL could be written. While a transistor-level diagram would be nice, I'm not sure that it would be necessary--or even useful. (Example: if the 7400 wasn't still available, the databook would tell you that it was a quad 2-input NAND chip. That ought to be enough to duplicate its functionality.)

(Then again, I changed majors from computer engineering to computer science, so I could be all wet here. :-) )

Re:It has 64k of memory - MOD PARENT BACK UP!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this informative, on-topic post have a 0 mod??????

About CLCS

[I-Secure-Space]

There are many facts that can be said in favor of space exploration and NASA. There are a lot of benefits to everyday life. NASA and its technology helps with emergencies, like wild fires and satelite imaging. Its not about the quality (or lack) of management, or fiscal blunders and so on.
Its about the future.

However, the CLCS project is one of NASA's most challenging. It challenging to upgrade from a system that is nearly 30 years old to one that actually uses technology that you (we) use. The stuff that acutally launches the shuttle now was invented by our parents or grandparents. It is amazing that it actually works, so far, so well and so safely. However, the fact is that it can only survive so much longer.

Beyond that, the fact is that I have spent 5 years of my life trying to convince the agency how to do it right. Again, this is more than showing how to upgrade from Win95 to Win2K. Its more like trying to upgrade from a PC/XT to a 1Ghz P4. Actually, the Launch system is a lot slower than a PC/XT. This is an attempt at a revolutionary change. And a long needed one.

And as always, revolutions are defended against by strong armies. In this case, the armies are civil servants and certain contractors that either have no vision for the future or corporate agendas aimed at defending their corporate place against change. In either case, the result is the same -
nothing.

This may be the final word on CLCS. The 500 or so engineers, designers, analysts and support staff at KSC will stand up at 9:00 EST tomorrow to hear what the status of our project will be. The livlihood of these 500, plus several hundred others at other locations, are hanging in the balance. But more than that, it is the future of the future that is in question.

gratuitous plug: write your congressman at http://house.gov/writerep (and you might save our jobs! :)