NationStates Jolt Archive

I do believe I have discovered NASA's problem after reading just part of this (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/19/space.shuttle/) article

excerpt:
"It's difficult to find a glitch that won't stay glitched," said Bill Parsons, the space shuttle program manager, at a news conference Monday evening.

To help find the malfunction, NASA has brought out of retirement an engineer who designed part of the sensor system back in the 1970s, said Wayne Hale, deputy shuttle program manager.

So, in the course of trying to fix a glitch in a space shuttle they are attempting to launch in 2005, they need to bring in an engineer who designed part of the CURRENT sensor system in the 1970s. Now, I may be speculating here, but I do believe technology has advanceda great deal since the 1970s and we could have and should have full updated things like sensors and all those other important technical things like that. Why havn't they? I'm pretty sure nasa is running on some ludicrously large budget that if the current entrepreneurs in the space race had they would have a Trump tower on the moon within the next 3 months.

Also, I do believe I solved another "mysterious" problem that I do not have an excerpt for. If everyoen recalls, this shuttle also had a piece of padding fall off. The people were baffled as to why it came off from where it did because, and I quote, "it was secured with tape." Now again, I'm not quite sure here, but I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be securing this like that with tape, and what kind of tape were they securing it with that it just FELL OFF, not pulled, fell of its own accord. Were they using marking tape? Or maybe some 3M scotch tape? Maybe they can pay me some moeny and I will go buy some heavy duty duct tape and come over and tape everything up right, or make a better suggestion, like using caulk or something

Well there's a guy who hacked US military and found a bunch of non-existent ships with full crew manifests. Maybe they don't want the shuttle finding what they shouldn't...

Also redesigning this stuff takes years and cash. If they want some publicity they need to launch ASAP or they fade out of sight.

Heh. Obviously, you have never had any experience with military technology.

You see, it is approximately 15-20 years(sometimes more, sometimes less) on average before any new 'system' replaces an old 'system'. Unless something is new and unique, the testing and approval process for replacement systems and technologies is so long that by the time the military gets them, they are already obsolete.

When I was in the Navy, there was talk of replacing the ESM/ECM system with a 'new' system that was developed in the late 80s(this was in 1996).

That's the military way. :p

Does NASA fall under military funding or something?

Ihatevacations']Does NASA fall under military funding or something?

NASA is... unique. It's both private AND federally funded and controlled.

I don't completely understand it either. I'm not sure THEY do!

The space shuttle is the most complex puzzle consisting of more than a million parts. I think NASA went with "never change a running system".

And I believe they already have made changes to their shuttles, the Discovery being one of the newer ones?

Anyway, it's kinda sad to see that NASA has to rely on retired experts. Good he's still around, huh?