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Linux In Space: Red Hat Rides The Rocket
neiljt writes "BBC News
have a
piece
on NASA experiments to use IP for space missions. The article is a little low-tech, but more details available from NASA (OMNI).
Is this the first Red Hat in space?" It's worth pointing out as well that Debian made the ride nearly six years ago. Still, great news.
Back in the early 90s Nasa flew the Macintosh Portable (a bulky 13lb pre powerbook brute) on the shuttle. I remember that one of the more humourous issues dealt with the macs power eject of floppy disks. In Earth's gravity, the floppy catches on the edge of drive, so that it stops partway out. In space, when the floppy was unmounted, it flew accross the compartment.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
When I worked for NASA as a contractor on an engine test stand, we had a fast track "proof of concept" project to replace the Space Shuttle Main Engine control computer with "modern technology". Seems that some ambitious young engineer had caught the attention of management and crusaded to bring this particular component "out of the dark ages", so he rolled up his controller code and did the engine interface with a laptop, this primarily to rub in the notion that this could be done with off-the-shelf hardware. The thing had a beautiful graphical interface too. The engine started up just fine, but when he tried to throttle up we had a wonderfully spectacular explosion and fire. It seems that his control algorithm didn't bother to implement all of the safeguards that were a part of the hardware of the "antiquated" control computer.
The best part was watching the "old hands" on the test stand shaking their heads at the fundamental errors this "new technology" had introduced. Many of these guys had worked with Werner Von Braun himself and had already learned (from their mistakes) not to do what the fancy new controller was doing. That knowledge has been embedded in those old controllers. A reimplementation on more modern hardware is a fine idea, but one must understand completely what works. IMHO, once you invest the study to understand the working system you come away thinking it's not so bad after all...
Heat dissipation in space is a factor. I recall something about a regular plastic flashlight that MELTED in the shuttle bay because without an atmosphere even the few watts generated by a flashlight won't go no where.
If this PC will also be used in a vacuum, heat dissipation will become a major problem. Cooling a 70W processor would be a major engineering challenge and no, a simple heatsink fan won't cut it.
If so inclined, try putting your (dude, i got a) Dell into a vacuum chamber and see how long it lasts.