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NASA Will Man Destruct Switch Just In Case

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the explosions-are-cool dept.

Ant writes "Popular Mechanics reports if the looming Discovery mission or any other between now and the spacecraft's retirement loses control, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is prepared to ditch it in the Atlantic ocean — or blow it up. The article also shows complete no-fly-zone maps and a photograph of the switch."

7 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Four Buttons? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't understand why there are four switches. I mean, I understand "Arm" and "Destruct", but why "test"? Does that blow up just a small section of the shuttle? I would have thought that turning off the "Arm" would be the same as "Safe"

    I know, I know ... it's the engineers having a laugh. Getting a kick out of the confused looks on stupid people like myself.

    1. Re:Four Buttons? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure hope those are labeled correctly... just in case anyone at NASA would think it's a funny prank, I recommend NASA add one more rule to their launch procedures: "DO NOT lauch on April 1st"

      Best use a time window, to allow for differences in 'local time' (a relative notion for space operations)

    2. Re:Four Buttons? by greeze · · Score: 5, Funny

      They should've had Apple design it. Apple would've done it with only ONE switch.

  2. photograph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I looked at TFA, and I gotta tell you, it's an exciting picture of the switch. Actually, it looks like FOUR switches and FOUR buttons. Well worth going to the site to see it.

  3. Re:Not news by moteyalpha · · Score: 5, Funny

    Could we get a set of buttons like that on this article? If the comments are going down in flames, CmdrTaco could self destruct the article.

  4. Re:Not news by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some people get them for every post. It's called -1 [troll||redundant||offtopic||overrated]. The people with them are called mods. Watch what they do to both our poor posts now.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  5. Slashdot Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Test: ping

    Arm: login root

    Destruct: rm / -rf

    Safe: logout