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NASA Draws On Open Source For Shuttle Bug-Tracking

Posted by Soulskill on from the hard-to-argue-with-cheaper-and-faster dept.

thefickler writes "NASA has built a new software package to track problems with the Space Shuttle using open source tools from Mozilla. '[Alonso Vera, the lead of the Ames Human-Computer Interaction Group] wouldn't say exactly how much the new systems cost to build, but he said they were an order of magnitude cheaper than what was being used before, closer to $100,000 than the $1 million it would have cost in the past.' The Space Shuttle Endeavor launched successfully on Friday, so the new system is being used to track any problems which may crop up in the current mission. As one commentator pointed out, 'A system like this could save more than money; it could save lives.'"

8 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Re:PHLEGM already taken... by Yetihehe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In polish "praca" means "work". So probably it just works.

    --
    Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
  2. How is this surprising? by AndGodSed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, open source is cheaper, AND appears to give good results?

    Why am I not surprised?

    --

    Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity

  3. Re:Bugzilla? Really? by david.gilbert · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hopefully the rocket scientists were doing rocket science while leaving the IT people that support the rocket scientists to choose the bug tracker.

  4. Why not publish the source online? by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why don't they publish read only access of the source code online and allow the public to file bug reports?

    More eyeballs, shallow bugs.

  5. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by khallow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I disagree. That sounds like a big lifesaver right there. At the least, it'll help catch sets of problems that are synergistic. For example, if you have some avionics issue that is sensitive to excess vibration from the SRBs, it'd be helpful to easily access the SRB problem databases and see what vibration problems they currently have. That may tip the decision from "we'll let it go for this launch since it hasn't been a problem before" to "the latest SRBs have some new problems that affect this issue, we better fix it this time to be sure."

  6. Re:They're already using it by PPH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Both Columbia and Challenger failed because management overruled engineering and ordered that schedule be maintained in spite of quality concerns. Launch it now, land it now, release it now.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  7. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by DiegoBravo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Despite the (European) Ariane, the most tragic NASA's episodes were not directly related to software. Even with the high business software project failure rate, the software in the space ships has proved very reliable.

    I think people is biased to feel the software as a intractable mess because of the intractable requirement dynamics in business projects. BTW, never complains that the hardware can be so bad too.

  8. Re:It could have saved a lot of lives, actually by khallow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I strongly doubt it. For example, the two problems that killed astronauts on the Space Shuttles were known issues to the people making the big decisions. Better issue tracking might have helped address these problems before they killed someone, but it is unlikely.