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NASA Will Man Destruct Switch Just In Case
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."
You know, if you are going to have destruct switches... they really should look like that. A big turn key, solid, metal, single function panel that does nothing else. Heavy clunky switches that tell you you've done something. Yep, if you're going to have what is essentially a "big red button" that's how it should look. There's no mistaking that for the coffee dispenser switch. Putting modern "iPhone" styling on that would be a sin.
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The press does not exist to provide information but to provoke emotion. Showing the actual button that destroyes a spacecraft with human occupants achieves this effect nicely.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
According to NASA documentation, the SRB Range Safety system is operated by encoded signals.
;)
From the description in the document, it sounds like one coded signal to 'arm' and a second coded signal to 'fire'. I'd bet that due to the nature of the system, it's transmission method will be so simple that it rarely needs to be tested and as such gives little opportunity for homicidal black-hat analysis.
Finally, I'll also bet that the codes are as top-secret as to-secret can be (as in: Get caught with this and you'll disappear forever). It wouldn't surprise me if the codes are created and handled by just one person on the day of use and never used again. Or perhaps two people where only one person knows the arm code and the other the fire code before the system is finally set.
However it's done, I'd like to think that a hell of a lot of thought went into system security
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Did you just fall off the turnip truck? all rockets launched have this, manned and unmanned; all military missiles from short range and upward have this; private rockets will be required to have self-destruct capability also. Rockets bound for orbit have enough energy in their fuel tanks to equal yield of tactical nuclear weapon. If it malfunctions and heads for populated area of course it has to be destroyed, seven people on board who are going to die anyway should not take out hundreds or thousands on the ground.
I like how there is a cut up pice of printer paper with larger labels around the buttons.
That tells me that somebody looked at the Space Shuttle self destruct buttons and said, "You know this 'test' button looks alot like the 'destruct' button. We should probably do something about that."
I've never seen a young AF captain look so old or so relieved as when passing the last milestone, "go for orbit" on a manned launch.
Invenio via vel creo
I am no expert in man-machine interfaces, but I think I would make the Destruct switch a different kind of switch and color than the rest of the switches. It should be red and the others orange or yellow or something.
I would just want to minimize as much as possible the chance that the destruct switch was accidentally activated if things got really hairy and fast moving and the range officer had to be prepared to blow the thing up.
I know they toggles have the red guards on them so the officer would have to flip it up before actuating, and from the article it appears to be a two-step process (arm then destruct), but four identical switches next to each other for such a critical function just seems a bit risky to me. I think I might even make it a two-person job where the 2nd could destruct only after the first armed.
But then I realize that by delaying the destruction, many more lives could be put in danger if the assembly was headed over populated areas. Still, four identical switches and buttons right next to each other, with such dissimilar functions seems a bit risky to me.
You are insinuating that the people who work in life and death situations at NASA are incapable of acting in a professional manner. It's preposterous.
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It's akin to being an executioner. You may not do your job ever but once in your life, but once you've done it you're never going to want to do it again. That's what you're getting paid for.
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