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Hubble Repairs Declared "Complete Success"

Posted by Roblimo on from the upgrades-that-work dept.

Matt G writes "The Hubble Telescope's brain transplant seems to have been a perfect succss - British-born Michael Foale and Swiss Claude Nicollier carried out the delicate operation of installing a new computer as they flew over Australia at an altitude of about 600km (360 miles) on Thursday. The full story is posted at The BBC News site here. "

1 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Best Wishes to NASA by Effugas · · Score: 5

    The Hubble Repair mission should remind us of what, sadly, has been somewhat forgotten as of late:

    These guys know their stuff.

    When I sysadmin a machine I'm standing next to...I'm standing on something. I'm not floating in nothingness, hoping my toolkits don't float away into the emptiness of space, trying not to bend a couple hundred gold pins while wearing massive mittens and a spacesuit that I have to continually check for tears.

    I also don't generally do it for eight hours straight without so much as a water break.

    Similarly, when I'm admining a system remotely, I'm not piggybacking on top of a defense network that I can lose access to at any moment, nor am I trying to fit modern computational systems into a space-hardened antiquated piece of hardware. These are some crazy skilled coders, and they deserve much more respect than the budget-forced unit conversion fiasco implied. (We should be ashamed for the reaction! These )

    I'm proud of NASA, and I'm proud of the engineer-athlete-scientists who made the Hubble space telescope possible. Thank you. Your work is appreciated.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com