NASA Finds Critical Assembly Fault in Shuttle

mzs writes "During corrosion inspection on Discovery, technicians noticed that one of the gears in a rudder actuator had been installed backwards. This particular actuator was the top-most of four that control the air brakes on the tail. As luck turns out, if it had been the bottom-most actuator, loss of the shuttle and crew would have been nearly inevitable. Plans are in place to have four spares by the time Shuttle missions resume next year."

Comments

Re:Instead of slamming NASA

[Seek_1]

geez... three in a row. This is what I get for preview/spell-checking my posts!

Re:Should have used Java

[DR SoB]

Great, "IOException Error" = Brakes failed.. "Invalid Format Error" = Math wrong. DoWeAllWantToCode.In.Java.SoundsLikeFun.ExceptWhen WeMissADumbInstruction.ImGonnaFormatMy.Posts.LikeJ ava.CuzItIsSoooooCool

Re:Should have used Java

[AKAImBatman]

Dude, that crap looks like Visual Basic. Have you ever actually coded Java? THIS looks like Java:

public void engageBrakes() throws ShuttleException
{
try
{
Iterator iterator = getActuators();
Actuator actuator;

while(iterator.hasNext())
{
actuator = (Actuator)iterator.next();
actuator.setActuatorPower(0.35);
}
}
catch(IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
throw new ShuttleException("Failed to communicate with brake microcontroller!", e);
}
}

Just because you're a Microsoft lover doesn't mean you have to spoil the fun for those of us who can actually *code*.

Re:Should have used Java

[DR SoB]

It looks like what I wrote, a bunch of case-sensitive CRAP.

"Just because you're a Microsoft lover doesn't mean you have to spoil the fun for those of us who can actually *code*."

Did you come up with this on your own or what?

BTW- Actually I'm an assembler programmer.