Delayed, overbudget and broken. Of course Microsoft's finest would be found in NASA's Orion Getting astronauts to the Moon or Mars is the least of NASA's problems. Persuading Microsoft Windows not to fall over along the way is apparently a far greater challenge. Spotted by Register reader Scott during a visit to the otherwise excellent Space Center Houston, there is something all too real lurking within the mock-up …
At 56, I'm about as young as you can be and still have used a slide rule. I have a couple, plus a few books of log and trig tables from my teenage years, on a shelf near my computer. I keep meaning to put them in a glass-fronted case with a hammer and a sign : "Break Glass in Case of Power Failure."
I still use an abacus and slide rules on a daily basis :-)
The abacus in the feed barn is used to calculate nutritional requirements for the various critters (more modern calculators don't last more than a couple weeks in that environment). And I use my[1] old Sun[2] Engineering slide rule for back-of-the envelope calculations (decking needs, fencing, roofing, DG, roadbase, beam loads, and the like), and I have a circular slide rule in each of the aircraft.
[1]My Dad's, actually, it helped get him his Electrical Engineering Masters at Berkeley in the '50s. Helped me with mine a couple decades later.
[2] No, not that Sun! This Sun: http://sliderulemuseum.com/Hemmi/S071_Hemmi_255.jpg
When I taught "history of computing" I made everyone use log tables and slide rules. I only posed simple problems (What is 2 X 3) but everyone got a working slide rule (courtesy of xeroxing a circular slide rule image on a transparency and a piece of paper and a push pin so the two could rotate). I also handed out complete 5-place log tables (generated by a C++ program).
It was really an easy class - I just wanted people to get a feel about how things were done 60-70 years ago.
I can see it now, heroic astronauts on the dark side of the moon trying to reach the environmental control console to turn on the O2 (moved for the 563th by MS, now nested 14 layers down in the "Breathing console" of the new "Comfort" section) only to get....."unable to contact licensing server".
Agreed that sending a space mission out with Windows on their computers (and other devices) is asking for trouble.
Linux (and other *nix derivatives are the answer) as these will not hog the bandwidth, and can be modified to suit the mission.
Of course, the lowest common denominator for all of the Operating Systems in the world (galaxy?) is any of the following : a dead CPU, faulty RAM or a self-scrambling storage device.
As far as I can see, the notion of Windows in space is stillborn. DOA.
Windows is an OS that cannot function properly without a regular connection to the mothership (pun intended). On top of that, if ever have to reinstall a PC on the other side of the Moon, Windows Activation is going to be a right nightmare.
Don't go telling me that you can install a Windows Activation Server or other such nonsense. It is not a solution, it is nothing but a Band-Aid.
Linux is the only OS that deserves going to space. It's modularity and frugality are legendary, and it does not phone home.
I remember the first Jovian satellite designed by JPL. They said that the radiation was 10 times what they expected and that the radiation kept flipping bits in the active registers in the computers. This caused the computers to be slower. They did not fail because of robust design!
They maintain Coordinated Universal Time (UTC +0). Roughly, the same as Iceland. No, that's not the same as GMT ... they don't use so-called "daylight savings" time (which should be taken out behind the barn and shot as the perverse, ugly, feel-good bullshit that it is).
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