NASA engineers play space surgeon in bid to unclog Voyager 1's arteries The tenuous power situation onboard the veteran Voyager 1 spacecraft has required engineers to perform a delicate balancing act while switching between thrusters as fuel lines gradually become clogged. The Voyagers have three sets of thrusters: two sets of attitude propulsion thrusters and one set of trajectory correction …
No need, necessarily, to go so upmarket. We have an LG washer that's (IIRC) 13 years old and a Beko which is about half that. One of our freezers (another Beko) has managed 20 years so far though I did have to fit a new thermostat in about year three. Its refrigerator twin was still working well when we had to swap it out for a bigger model some seven or eight years ago.
I have a still-working and still in occasional use RiscPC which is (mostly) nearly 30 years old, and some Pentiums with SCSI drives at work in daily use which are approaching 20.
I wouldn't expect any of those to manage 50 years though.
I hope the Voyagers get a good send-off when they finally go dark.
M.
"though I did have to fit a new thermostat in about year three."
The skills to do that are fading away. My counter-top convection oven is a complete Frankenstein since the point where the selector switch broke and no replacements were to be found. The PID controller on it now is more accurate, the relay is bog standard and I expect if there were a replacement part available, it would have cost more. I have some fun doing "steam punk" control refits on things so the bodge looks intentional.
My brother had a very bad experience with Miele - purchased a top of the line induction cooktop from them for $7k. He was very happy with it till it broke down in 1.5 years. Took it back to Miele and they refused to fix it till he threatened to report them to the ACCC (Our consumer protection forum). They finally replaced it after 6 months - he had to manage with a portable stove until then. And guess what? The replacement cracked right down the middle after 6 months and Miele again refused to fix it till he threatened to go to the ACCC again.
In Australia it doesn't matter if a product is out of warranty - if it is a premium product you can reasonably expect it to last a long time. (That's why Apple has to offer a minimum 2 years warranty here)
(When I say refused above, it was not an outright refusal as that would be illegal in warranty - it was more like 'Maybe you dropped a piano on it - that's not covered'...)
"purchased a top of the line induction cooktop from them for $7k. "
To me, full swank would be an Aga. The downside is that it's too hot here in the summer to use one year-round.
Rant:
I found a range today for free but the person posting the ad had stuck it in front of their house, first come, first served. It's about 45 minutes from me and I'd need to rent a truck to move it so it would be a total waste of time and money if I did that and found it had already gone. I'm ranting due to it being a model that I want and the only issue is the housekeeper hit the stainless with the wrong sort of cleaner and discolored the metal. Grrrr.
Both friends that have extremely expensive Miele laundry equipment have both had them extensively repaired/replaced under warranty.
They suffer from the Mercedes effect.
It is as pre-paying for a 10 year extended warranty up front.
They now just offer a 2 year warranty and Domestic and General past that now: same as many others.
I’ll take a 5 year Samsung warranty on my stuff thanks.
"but a consequence of material science advancing as far as it has..."
Material science is very far ahead, but so it modeling lifetimes so spec'ing components that will last not much longer than the warranty period is simpler. OTOH, If you look at the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, they had to last a minimum of 90 sols after a rough trip to the red planet and survive the conditions once they got there. If they didn't, many senior people on the teams would never work on that sort of project ever again. Harsh, but due to the cost of those sorts of missions, NASA and other stakeholders can only support winners. Since the rovers were built so well, they lasted many years and even kept on dragging a duff wheel or other failure.
I have 3 Samsung TVs, all over 10 years old. Have never had a problem with them. Electrolytic capacitors can fail prematurely if subjected to increases in ambient temperature. You don't keep your Samsung in a Window with the Sun belting down on the back of it? Or maybe you like your room temperature set at 25-30 Deg.C I once saw a Toshiba engineering document that showed how life expectancy of capacitors declined for every 5 degrees increase. The increase in failure rate with temperature was substantial.
The sweet spot was to run your equipment between 18-20 degrees C and it will last and last.
I have one of these toasters I picked up at a flea market about 15 years ago, it’s somewhere between 75 and 99 years old, and still works.
It's not just having anything built today last so long, but also in a harsh environment with no way to service it. I do not doubt there will be, e.g., Volvos built today which will still be working in 2071, along with many other old-timers, but only because they are stored safely, and lovingly maintained, not blasted by micro meteorites, harsh radiation, extreme cold. NASA's engineers are nothing short of miracle workers.
Dream on about current Volvos, they share absolutely nothing with their forebears. Two changes of ownership, one of whom were Ford kicked any of that old fashioned "build it to last" mentality into the long grass, no money in that. I have a 1997 V90 that has never once let me down. It lives outside in all weathers (UK), & most of the time that I've owned it (23 years & counting) it has been a builder's van, landlords removal van, kart racing barge (one inside & one on the roof) & I'd still jump in it & drive across Europe without a moment of worry that it'd let me down.
Only now am I having to start doing occasional minor works on it (squeaky window mechanism, leaking vacuum pipes etc) & with every article I read about current / future cars (like the Ford "ads in cars" patent application this week) the more determined I am to keep it going even if it does start to cost me.
"Can you imagine anything built today still working in 2071???"
I planted some olive tree seedlings (which I grew from seed) the other day. I know that's not really "built" but it is starting something. They could still be there in the year 7024. And yes I picked a location which should be undisturbed for at least 100 years, by which time they will be very established.
This is an utterly lovely movie - inspiring, awesome and deeply moving all at the same time.
The devotion, ingenuity and sheer brilliance shown by this team of engineers is wonderful to see, and shows what humans are capable of. A great antidote to all the other stuff that’s going on in the world. Pale blue dot stuff.
Thanks for spreading the word about it, Michael!
I have a deep respect for the engineers and technicians at NASA, but one day, people, one day Voyager I is going to die.
Your continued admirable, nay, legendary, service to this bit of equipment that has already surpassed ever possible limit is no less than astonishing, but we all have to face the facts : one day, there will no more response.
Meanwhile, I bow before your dogged determination to keep things working.
You are the best, and that's an understatement.
The universe is kind-of large. I think the probability of some... thing finding such a tiny object in that vastness is ZERO. More likely it will collide with some piece of space debris and be reduced to atoms long before it gets anywhere near an inhabited star system. But then again, I simply don't know what lies in the direction it is traveling. I'm not from that area.
If space is infinite and we can see gaps between the stars, then matter must be finite. Infinity divided by any finite number is still infinity, ergo space is empty, there is no matter, it's just a figment of your imagination. Including me :-)
(loosely based on something Mr Adams stated in HHGTTG :-))
"More likely it will collide with some piece of space debris and be reduced to atoms long before it gets anywhere near an inhabited star system."
As you say, space is VAST. The chances of it hitting some space debris are essentially as zero as that of it ever being picked up by some alien. In fact, even the chance of it hitting a pretty big-ass star or planet are infinitesimal, given the sparseness of the universe. My bet is it will still be travelling at the heat-death of the universe....
(or it will go around the universe's edge and start approaching the Earth from the opposite side!!!)
As you say, space is VAST.
I think you meant to say "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space, listen...*"
Or words to that effect.
__________________
* Never let a chance for a Douglas Adams reference go to waste.
I don't know about that. It's a long, long time till the heat death of the universe and who knows what will happen.
Maybe we'll get lucky, whatever that means.
Consider the luck that produced you and me at this time, here and now. An astoundingly long chain of accidents and coincidences culminating in a habitable planet populated by carbon-based life forms with a rudimentary form of intellegence and two of us a part of it, what are the odds of that? Probably within the same order of magnitude or two of another life-form finding our little toy after millennia compounded by millennia.
Or maybe it'll get sucked into a black hole at the center of some far off galaxy.
Or maybe it will just drift along forever.
Pretty cool, no matter how you slice it.
Far cooler than billionaires doing stunt tricks in orbit, at least for my money.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
OR, the Earth will get prosecuted for littering, and have to pay a $50 fine* and pick it up ...
*It just depends on whether 'they' find the other ones we've sent into the great black yonder and charge us for those as well. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_leaving_the_Solar_System)
see did, kind of leave our name, and address on some of these probes.
And among those engineers were software engineers writing tight, reliable, code in very limited memory using then state-of-the-art techniques of modular programming. Their techniques and technical discipline have enabled a long stream of modifications and new code that accommodate to dying hardware and evolving scientific missions. A round of cheers for all!
If we are ever to visit another solar system we need to learn everything we can from keeping Voyager 'alive' and functioning. All the tricks tag work, and making sure that there are as many tricks available as possible. Banning technical incompatibilities (and yes, space-suits and retiring to Earth from the ISS spring to mind), and careful design for longevity, rather than minimising financial cost.
They sure don't build them like Voyager any more, I really do wonder how much longer they can keep it running though.
In this lesson... Avoid rubber diaphragms in fuel systems.
Not everything from the Voyager programs is dealing with the sheer distance these spacecraft are away from earth. Keeping them operational continues to teach us the tools & techniques necessary for travel between the stars. There is still much to be learned from these amazing creations.
Someday, a millennia from now.... "Yeah, dude, you cannot use rubber lines in your fuel system. Everyone knows that. You would never make it past Pluto."
I'm more amazed that they have the instrumentation to figure out what's happened to the plumbing.
I guess they must measure the flow rate further downstream, and that may even be necessary for proper feedback control, but still, the ability to diagnose is highly impressive.
The ingenuity of these Engineers is just astounding. I imagine it is noisy in the room as the buzz from imaginative thinking resonates off the walls.
When poor little Voyager eventually stops responding, at least in a form we can receive, I wonder if Flat Earthers will confirm it has dropped off the edge of the universe. They are the only people (!) who can compete in terms of imagination.
To the Voyager bods: ----->
In particular the 1962 Porsche my father bought is still in the family. I used it for a few (1972 - 1989), owned it from (pink slip) from 1975 to 2007, and now it is in the hands of my three nephews. Sure it has had some body work done (don't get into arguments with ice), and a bit of running gear work (disc brakes), but it is still in running order and is nicely in running order. Fortunately is is serviceable locally and not billions away. It proves the axiom that proper maintenance does wonders. Unfortunately in today's world maintenance comes after obsolesce, and we throw away lots of things to "maintain" them.
So, life goes on...
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