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Black Boxes for Spacecrafts
karvind writes "NewScientist is running story about NASA's plan to put small, heat-resistant black boxes that will transmit data back to Earth when future space probes break up during re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere. NASA will work with Aerospace Corporation to develop black boxes called Reentry Breakup Recorders (REBRs) weighing just 1 kilogram and spanning less than 30 centimetres."
Shouldn't that be an "if"?
Umm... they're talking about unmanned craft dude...
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
How can you avoid it if you don't know how it happens?
If we made stuff that never failed, how would we ever know we'd done it? We only learn that we haven't successfuly made things that never fail when things fail, and when things fail then we need the best evidence as to how they fail so we can stop it happening again.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I've seen wreckage of large aircraft. A lot of pieces were very recognizeable, or still in one piece. Engine turbines, weapons hard points. But obviously, you can't make the whole aircraft out of that. It would never get off the ground.
Launching an extra kilo into orbit? That's actually pretty expensive isn't it.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Keep that in mind.
I suggest you read Slashdot
...but I'd think desinging the spaceships so they don't break up on reentry might be a better idea.
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...our new era of information saturation.
As sensors become smaller, lighter, and more networked, it makes sense to put recording devices on ANYTHING remotely mission critical, mainly because at a certain point it becomes negligent not to.
When I ride over the Queensboro Bridge in NYC, I stare up with apprehension at the thousands of rusting girders that hold that rattletrap together. The only thing forestalling a collapse is having actual dudes crawling over it all the time checking visually for cracks and obvious failures. The smart pebble technology previously mentioned on Slashdot - http://www.betterroads.com/articles/feb03b.htm - would make me feel more comfortable.
I feel the same way on airplanes- do I trust that a ground tech working for a lowest-bidder maintenance company has adequately checked the airframe? I sure would like real-time fatigue information being beamed to the pilot, so he can decide wether to fly or not based on risking his own skin.
The most amazing thing about our age of astounding engineering is still the amount of ignorance we maintain about our constructions (Bucky Fuller's famous, and unanswered question to an architect: How much does your building weigh?). Thus, safety margins, inspections, building codes, all serving as bandaids to a fundamental ignorance that bites back BIG when a failure does occurr (sure, the WTC can absorb the impact, but can it survive the potential energy bundled in a plane, including the BTUs in the fuel? Nope).
Privacy wonks will worry about networked sensors in their toilets watching them take a crap, but really, if anyone wants to see mine, they're more than welcome to it- I just don't want to hear about it (eeewwww).
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
how bout we make it less dense then water so it'd float? or have it release inflate a tube around it upon contact with water?
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