Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
News

Space Station's LAN 172

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thousands-of-miles-straight-up dept.
Muad was the first, but this story was submitted many times: CNN is reporting on the space station's LAN . Check out those specs- 10base2? WinNT? Win95? Outlook? At least the stations vitals are controlled by Thinkpads running Solaris.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Space Station's LAN More

Space Station's LAN

Comments Filter:

  • 10 base 2??? Who spec'd out this? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    10base2 has shielding, and you don't need a hub.

    if you had _read_ the article you would know that.

    Does this mean there will be no Quake on the ISS? :)
  • Don't you think a hub IS a single point of
    failure ? Should they have gone using multiple
    switches with spanning tree and that whole
    stuff ? Nah... 10base2 is just nice, and draws
    0 power. That's the REAL point !
  • I was under the impression that most hard-core scientists had a working knowledge of Unix and it's derivatives and that a large amount of scientific software was based in the Unix world.

    Am I missing something? Luckily that no critical systems will use Windows... that would be truly scarey, but I don't think I would use WindowNT for anything... those little solaris thinkpads have more than enough power to handle 8 people's email and won't require maintainance every 2 weeks :)
  • It's not a mission-critical environment. Just word processing and whatnot. Windows seems like the best choice in this environment...the astronauts have more important things to do that learning how to use Linux.
  • Assuming the astronauts have a home computer (which is a reasonable assumption), they already know how to use Windows, which means that Windows has no learning curve whatsoever. Very few, if any, are likely to have Linux running on their home computers, so they will be less familiar with it. Even if the learning curve is fairly low, it's still more than no learning curve, and the astronauts have better things to be doing that learning how to use Linux/X/StarOffice.
  • Read the article first, please.

    1) these laptops are not going to be collecting data, so they can't "lose data that was important" if they crash.

    2) I've never reinstalled Windows in the last few years. Reboots, sure, but not reinstalls. I install a lot of stuff too...if the astronauts are just doing word processing, the chances of really messing something up seriously aren't very good.
  • So what do you suggest they use instead? Linux has not even applied for the test, and would fail if it did (it fails the requirement that all security-related software be binary-only).
  • You haven't looked hard enough. I've always used LinkSys Combo cards on my laptops, mainly 'just in case' I need the coax somewhere. They're the main brand sold at Staples last time I was there.
  • I doubt anyone would have to learn anything from scratch.
  • If the platform they're familiar with is Unix, of course they'll be famialiar with Unix apps such as WordPerfect, LaTeX (they _are_ scientists, after all), Pine and the like.

  • BSOD (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by HolyMackeralAndy:

    BSOD will take on a whole new meaning.
  • Posted by dcantey:

    Hey, Keyboard Boy, Ever terminate STP. It can't be fun in a space suit. Anyway there is no such thing as Shielded Unshielded Twisted Pair.
  • I can't think of any system that has more of a need for good remote administration than an orbiting space station.

    Sending an IT staff member on-site is going to cost a tad bit more than an airplane ticket in this case, I think. Given that, the 'cost' of learning a Unix over Windows is well worth it. Besides, it's not like we're dealing with idiots who can't program their VCRs, which is MS's target audience. These are astronauts for Crissakes. Learning Unix is nothing compared to the rest of the training they end up going through in preparation for a mission. These are guys who think nothing of going through complicated checklists just to take a leak.

    Using Windows for this, even for something as simple as word processing and e-mail, is a major mistake because it cannot be fixed remotely. And why on earth (or not on earth) do they plan on making the communications link to the ground be some Windows proprietary crap too. That locks them in for purely artificial reasons. The comm link shouldn't give a rat's ass what the OS of the clients is, IMO.

    • They're budgeting an absolute minimum of complexity and hardware for a working computer network up there, yes?

    No, they aren't. They're using Windows. Windows and networking and minimum complexity don't belong in the same sentence.

  • All standard printers share this property: They collect the paper in a tray, they get fed paper from a tray. That doesn't work so well in zero G. 'Hold on, I have to go catch my printout, literally..'

    I doubt they will use printers of *any* kind up there. Where would they throw away the old paper? stuff on paper is a bad idea in general I would think.

  • __


    To summarize, a number of people have claimed that Windows is a good choice because the astronauts won't have time to muck about with the extra time it takes to get unix working. With Windows, the story goes, the astronauts can just go about their business without worrying about the OS.


    Then, in response to this, others point out that Windows is horrible for administration and crashing and so on, and can't be administrated remotely very well.


    In response, the Winvocate says that this is not a problem becasue, as the article points out, the laptops are being sent up preconfigured by competent personnel on the ground. If anything breaks they won't try to fix it remotely, just send up a new machine on the next run and take down the old one.


    Am I the only one that sees the contradiction here? Hellloooo, Mcfly! If the ground personnel are the only ones configuring the machines, and they spend the time to get them all working perfectly before they get sent up, then this knocks the legs out from under the argument that Unix would be bad because the astronauts would waste time fiddling with it.


    If all the admin happens on the ground, then Unix can be set up even better than Windows can be, and you have no reason to claim the astronauts have to set things up themselves.


    Remember that there are two Solaris laptops going up too. Are *they* going to be adminstrated by the astronauts? Of course not.

    • A major factor when selecting the machines is power requirements. Everything here is running off of solar cells and batteries, remember.

    Uhm, okay. Then they can start by using an OS that makes proper use of the HLT instruction.

  • Skylab! Aaaaaeeeeiiiii!

  • Um... (Score:1)

    by mholve ( 1101 )
    It's got great shielding - and I doubt their going to be running a Webserver or sending video around the LAN up there... ;>
  • ...it wasn't pure O2. I figured they'd run a mixture similar to the "air" down here.
  • idiot - scientists don't care about OS, they just want to write fortran (or matlab or whatever) and run batch jobs. it's only geeks who spend all their time playing and no time working that actually get upset over it.
  • ...a "Service Pack 5.2" upgrade. You know SP5.2, it's the one made by RedHat.
  • Fiber is faster, and doesn't need to be sheilded from EM interference, and is way sexy, technologically speaking. what were they thinking, indeed?
  • Fiber is faster.

    Hm.
    I wonder if all the air can leak out the improperly sealed hatch quicker than the proper locking protocol can be transmitted from the gateway machine to the hatch control mechanism over 10base2.

    I guess we'll just have to wait and see. . .
  • Tin cans and string then! Definately no need for EM sheilding there!
  • Just because you lack the NT experience and finesse required to keep your NT machine up for any length of time does NOT mean there aren't others that can.

    These machines are surely not going to be shipped up there empty with a box of 95/NT CDROMs. They are going to be installed and CONFIGURED by ground personnel. Unnecessary/unstable drivers and applications are going to be removed and the systems are going to be placed in a state to ensure optimum reliability.

    Even if a Win95 machine crashes, what's lost? They're only using these things for word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, and your typical office/laboratory data entry sort of stuff. Perhaps a game of solitaire. They're not using these things to adjust the space station's orientation or oxygen mixture.

    I'm a Linux person, but I'm really getting kind of sick of all these stupid anti-Windows posts people are making.

    Do you honestly think the people working at NASA managing and planning these things are STUPID? They're a fuckload smarter than you are and if I were you, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt every time.
  • Linux is not the best solution for this situation. The astronauts are not going to have the time nor desire to re-learn an OS (especially one with the learning curve of Linux/Unix).

    A - Probably not, but if they did, so what? The ground crew is going to be spending hours upon hours reconfiguring it and setting it up so that it's as reliable as possible (which can be pretty reliable, especially considering the resourcefulness of NASA engineers)

    B - Probably not, but even if they are, so what?

    C - I doubt that. They aren't building your typical SOHO LAN here. They need to ensure the equipment is protected and will function without fail for several years in orbit around earth. Network problems and equipment failures must be avoided.

    they found some guy with a lowly and super simple job that would actually talk about the project.

    That lowly simple worker has ten times the brains you do and probably makes ten times what you do. NASA doesn't hire stupid or shortsighted people.

    Thinkpads... good god.. why not something that is rugged and designed for scientific use?

    Why design and build proprietary hardware (at ten times the cost) that can unexpectedly fail when you have commercial, high-quality, high-reliability solutions right off the shelf? Aside from the trip up there, this hardware is going to be in THE ULTIMATE of places with regards to G forces and shock. Also, the astronauts are not going to have the time or desire to re-learn an operating system or hardware tool. They use Windows on the ground and are all probably very familiar with it. Why force them to change?

    as for the linux troll, yes linux could be used successfully and easily... no worries about gnome crap if you run a simple x windows or even use Metro-X. and there are several thousand linux systems still in use that are happily running 1.xx kernels and haven been updated for years.

    But why force the astronauts to spend time learning to use a brand new, complex operating system? Why force them to use a different word processor, spreadsheet and e-mail program than what they've used before?

    NASA engineers are not stupid.
  • While I still think they made a good decision using Windows PC's for the astronauts themselves, the back-end stuff could have been done a lot more reliably and easily if they used a Unix server for it...

    Though there might have been reasons they couldn't have. What if the data collection software they're using was written for NT? Since mass is a big thing, they would only want to take up the bare minimum of hardware. If they absolutely need an NT server for one or two tasks, a compromise with the e-mail system seems appropriate.

    There's probably a lot more to the story than what we're reading on the CNN article. Just put your faith in the fact that these guys are NASA engineers and they've probably already thought of this. :)
  • Think about this. The space station is orbiting several hundred miles up. Computer links with the ground are very lossy and prone to errors and they are NOT in 100% contact. There are times when the space station is completely out of contact with ground personnel.

    These things makes remote administration somewhat difficult (including SSH to a Unix machine).

    Besides, these systems are going to be pre-configured for optimal reliability by ground crew. They're not sending systems up with buggy/unstable drivers or loaded down with unnecessary and unpredicable applications. Problems like the ones you're describing are going to be nearly non-existant.
  • What makes you think they NEED training?

    Chances are, these guys are already familiar with Outlook. It's not exactly difficult to use.

    Did anyone ever consider the fact that maybe these astronauts WERE consultated with respect to their operating systems of choice?

    If I were going to use a PC to just check e-mail and do some occasional word processing, it pains me to say it, but I think I would choose Win95 over Linux. Linux is great for the things I use it for, but really, it's a bit overkill for what the astronauts need.
  • I believe they're using them for e-mail, word processing, data entry/spreadsheets, graphical information display (they mentioned a ground-control-style application suite for tracking the station's position).

    Since they already use Windows for a great deal (most? all?) of that stuff on the ground, it only makes sense to keep the astronauts using the same systems once they're in orbit.

    They may also have some other software not specifically mentioned in the article (like, say, data gathering software) that was written for NT/95.

  • Also (Score:1)

    by Fastolfe ( 1470 )
    A great deal (most? all?) of the data collected is actually going to be analyzed on the ground. The scientists up there are in most cases just performing the experiments and gathering the data. They're doing no analysis, which means the scientific software isn't really needed in orbit.
  • A lot of us are repeating ourselves (including myself) ad nauseum.

    • These Windows systems are going to be a bit more stable than your average Windows PC. The ground engineers are certainly going to strip these PC's of all non-essential/unstable drivers and applications before they send them up. They are going to do everything they can to be sure these things are as rock-solid and stable as can be. Despite the uninformed rantings you see on Slashdot, with some careful, clueful administration, any Windows system can be made as stable as you need it. I'm not saying it's *as* stable as Linux, but it can certainly be set up so that reboots every few hours or days won't happen. NASA engineers aren't stupid.
    • These systems are going to be used mainly for conveniences. Checking e-mail, doing word processing, spreadsheets and looking at the plotting software are HARDLY mission-critical activities. Assuming the machines ARE unreliable (which I doubt), does a reboot every week really matter?
    • With respect to adding a Unix box to supplement the NT box (like with sendmail, which I agree would be TONS better than Exchange), they may not have the mass or electricity for it. Every computer system they bring up adds more to the weight and power utilization. They could be working with some very tight limits that prohibit another system.
    • With respect to replacing the NT box with a Unix box, they may have a lot of software running on the NT machine that they need. From what I read, it sounds like they're using a centralized data gathering system running on that NT server. There could be any number of reasons why they need NT up there. Yes, they could rewrite the software to run on Unix, but why should they need to? They've already got it on NT.
    • No, not all of these astronauts are going to be familiar with Unix. Remember, these guys are just doing experiments and taking data. The analysis is usually done by the boys back home. Many of these guys neither have nor want any hard-core Unix experience. They don't want to have to mess with Linux if they can get the same features with an existing, FAMILIAR operating system.
    • Yes, I realize Linux *can* be set up to be as maintenance-free as Windows (which should be maintenance-free by the time the ground engineers are done with it) and the astronauts won't HAVE to delve into the internals of the OS. If this is the case, what advantage do the astronauts have? How can using Linux for the tasks that they're planning on using Windows for help them to be more productive, comfortable and safe? It can't. Any potential gains earned by using Linux are pummelled into uselessness by the amount of time and money required to train the astronauts to use it and to find and train ground engineers capable of supporting it.


    Everyone whines about how much the ISS costs. Do you think it's going to be cheap to rewrite NT software for Unix? Do you think it's going to be cheap to train the astronauts to use a new operating system? A new e-mail system?
  • Do you think they hired some high-school VB programmer to design this thing? This guy is a LOT smarter than you are and I think you should give him a little more credit.

    Just because he's not of the "use Linux for everything" mentality doesn't mean he's an idiot. He's probably got a whole staff of NASA engineers that are all approaching these problems and have decided upon the specs they have for reasons you (or I) have absolutely no knowledge of.
  • These guys aren't going to be using their 95 machines to locate another workstation connected via PPTP. They're doing your typical e-mail reading, word processing and generic SOHO tasks.

    We have a "cluster" of NT workstations here serving e-mail to anywhere from 30-50 thousand users. The only time they've had to be rebooted was due to software upgrades, hardware upgrades or hardware failures. We have competant people running our NT servers. Perhaps you don't.

    I'm not saying their applications are efficient in the least. I think it's considerably easier for a Unix admin to build and maintain a stable Unix server doing the same things that the NT server does.

    But then again you don't know the whole story here, do you? There could be any number of reasons why they need NT up there. Everyone here is going by simply what was presented in the article. I promise you there's information we don't know.

    With regards to Word/Outlook locking up the PC because of font problems, remember: The systems are going to be configured for reliability and optimal usability. They're not going to come loaded with a thousand different fonts. They're going to be working on these things, not building complicated proposals. With that in mind, it shouldn't be difficult to strip a Windows system down so that it works reliably.
  • you guys realize that windows has very specific flaws, even if microsoft keeps stuffing your brain with the opposite?

    Oh, I agree, 100%. I'm not saying these systems will be *as* stable or problem-free as their Unix counterparts. All I'm saying is that the astronauts certainly have experience configuring Windows systems (like any other moderately educated computer user), and that's what they've been using to date on the ground.

    All I was saying was that there are valid reasons for NASA choosing to have the astronauts use Windows for their "personal" computers. The silly claims about them wasting hours upon hours rebooting the machines every other minute and having to reinstall Windows every few weeks are just stupid.

    I will think that you MS-guys are learning too.

    Hah! Nobody's ever called me an "MS-guy" before. Usually I'm arguing in Linux's/Unix's favor, but I'm afraid for this article I have to step up to Microsoft's defense, simply because the Linux bigots feel they have to come out of the woodwork with every conceivable Windows cliche. It's pathetic. If you have a reasonable, educated argument, FEEL FREE to post it. Some have. But for those that feel they just have to jump on the "Linux r00lZ! WindoZe SuX!!" bandwagon without ANY real knowledge of the circumstances of the situation need to get a life.

    time in space is more expensive than per-pound costs. An hour of an astronaut's work is way more expensive than a couple of pounds. Moron.

    Ahh.. I thought this was going to be one of the first "real" dialogs, but I see we've resorted to name-calling. *sigh*.. It was going so well, too.

    If the single two factors we had to consider was the astronaut's time and the payload mass, I'd be tempted to agree. However, neither you nor I have even a MINIMAL idea of what tasks these astronauts are going to be doing and what exactly they'll be doing with their '95 machines and the NT server aside from what's already been discussed.

    Again, these are NASA engineers. You can be brutally certain that they have considered using non-Windows operating systems to do the task, but for some mixture of reasons, they opted instead to use Windows. Why? *I* don't know. *I* didn't make the decisions. It's not me you should be calling a moron. You have absolutely NO idea what factors they're considering. Again, they're not stupid. Give them some credit.

    Hell, if you're really that concerned, write NASA and see if you can get more information about their decision.

    don't think any other OS has crashed in space, other than Windows, mind you. True, Ariane blew up last year for a software problem..... but, still, is anyone aware of a "software problems in space" site ?

    Again, I agree that Windows is not the most stable OS choice, but again, this is not the only factor to consider. You don't have all of the information. Don't be so quick to judge.

    Besides, these are NOT CRITICAL MACHINES. A crash or reboot is not going to cause the loss of millions of dollars of astronaut time. I'm not saying that it's NOT going to crash. Let's say that an astronaut's machine requires a reboot once every week (an easy goal for NASA -- my Win98 PC at home, running continuously, used nearly continuously by various people, needs to be rebooted an average of once every two weeks). That's what, a maximum of 3 minutes? 3 minutes/week is nothing. He could easily spend 30 seconds a day brushing his teeth a bit longer.

    The guys at NASA are smart, but I'd bet against a nobel prize that there are better solutions than this one.

    Why don't you write them and enlighten them? Say, "Hi guys, I know you've been studying this problem for months if not years, and I know you have degrees in all of these types of things, and I know I have but an inkling of knowledge regarding what you're going to be needing these machines to be doing and the environment it's all going to be working in, but really, you're all morons! You could be doing it SO much better if you used Linux!"

    Please...
  • It's to stop the space-station being invaded by aliens! As soon as the alien invasion fleet realises that the space-station is using Windows, there won't be enough gold-plated latinum in the galaxy to coax them to step one foot inside!
  • You're right, NASA is really trying to save a buck here and there on networking hardware. Give me a break. I guarantee you that a spool of fiber and a concentrator is lighter than a big roll of shielded 10Base-2.
  • I have no scientific skills, but I'm good at sysadmining. I wanna job on the space station.

    --


  • Sheilding in space is VERY important. The sun gives out tremendous amounts of electromagnetic energy.. as well as x-rays and other forms of radiation. An unshielded system would simply NOT work because of an extremely large amount of data error caused by these fields/rays.

    On earth we don;t have this problem because the earths magnetic field and atmosphere protect us from this. You won't have that in space.

    -Ex-Nt-User

  • Nope Hard Drives are filled with just regular air. It's very low particle..clean room level air.. but it's not some inert gas or something like that. (I know I work at a HD company)
    As far as takeoff.. there will be no problem as long as the drives are not spoinning at the moment. A lached drive is capable of withstanding upwards of 100G forces.

    -Ex-Nt-User
  • They point out in the article that 10base2 uses less power than 10baseT.

    That's kind of important when you're running everything off large solar cells and batteries.

    Not to mention a 10base2 LAN will require less cable than a 10baseT LAN, as well as a hub. This saves a few ounces of weight...

    This is important when you are flying around 250 miles above the planet.
  • Guys -- this is actually good news!

    What it means is that NASA is actually breaking away from the mystique of custom, over-priced solutions. Which greatly increasess our chances of living on the moon in our old age.

    Does Windows suck -- YES. Does it matter? I mean, we're talking about email here. With any luck, we'll have another USS Yorktown style incident. :)

    I have to admit though that the 10Base-2 is a bit harder to swallow.

  • besides the obvious (email) can anyone (constructively) confirm to what use they might use MS-Win95/NT based software for?

    I've had a look at a lot of the sw at nasa and most of it's number crunching for calcualting position etc...
  • As long as you have air pressure, hard-drives have no problem, they use laptops on the space shuttle
    all the time.

    Despite what some /.-ers will tell you, aerodynamic lift is not very dependent on gravity,
    which you can verify by spinning-up your hard-drive in various orientations (but not while
    it's spinning, angular momentum can do bad things).

    No gravity, small problem, but not for the reason you might think. The biggest problem with any
    electronic or mechanical system in space is heat dissipation. On earth, hot air rises, causing
    the hot air to move away from the heat source (convection). In zero G, heat doesn't rise so
    you have to have fans or heat pipes.

    Hard-drives probably go through many more thermal recalibration cycles in space, but this is minor.
  • Freecell has worked perfectly under Wine for a year.

    But hardcore microgamers play reversi (othello) anyways.
  • Isn't MS software only licensed for use in one time zone?

    This could give rise to a new phenomenon: Windows re-entry day.



  • Hey, I for one, agree that Windows can be set up to be fairly stable. It's why I insist on doing fresh installs when computers get shifted around at work. No extra garbage from app uninstalls and crap like that. BUT, in one of your posts you stated that w/out installing more software, Win will stay as stable as the day it was installed. Phooey. I've set up my own system with 2 high end apps, and nothing more (except device drivers.) Six months that install lasted. A record.

    You may not notice the difference in the software you run, but with multitrack digital audio, system degradation is very apparent. It demands real time, stable performance. Windows can do that for a while, but the registry seems to get "crusty." The best version of Windows isn't even available unless you bought a new computer between 8/96 and 5/98. Win95B was the only one worth spitting on. Go try and buy it. (This excludes NT, which is a whole other set of pros and cons... not a huge leap forward, IMHO.)

    Also, buggy apps should be irrelavent to the OS. If the app crashes, restart it. But it shouldn't take the system down with it, increasing the chances that the registry will get corrupted. That's not something I want astronauts I'm paying to worry about.

    On the other hand, I don't want them spending the time learning new apps, either. I'll take a guess that this is why NASA chose MS. Hmm, I think the article said something like that, huh?
  • I agree -- NASA isn't stupid. But their motivation in using Windows and Windows programs seems to have been explicitly stated -- they wanted the astronauts to use programs with which they're already familiar.

    Further, since Microsoft itself has admitted their OS's crash far more frequently than Solaris or Linux, it seems pretty silly to claim otherwise.

    I've been involved with a highly competent Windows (3.x, 9x, etc.) support department (configuration, installation, etc.) for over three years at a good-sized university. My experience evidently diverges from yours strongly when it comes to OS stability.

    Kythe
    (Remove "x"'s from

  • I wouldn't like to change a toner cartridge in zero-gravity...
  • The key to the whole reason for use of Windows NT is:
    The station will use an "orbiter communication adapter," similar to the ones now used by NASA space shuttles to handle data communications with the ground. The OCA is specially designed by NASA to accept all the delays and drop outs associated with space-to-ground communications. The device will attach to the network using proprietary Windows device drivers.

    We need an open-source OCA project!

  • Slashdot (Score:1)

    by Vic ( 6867 )
    "E-mail is a bit of a challenge since we do not have a constant connection with the ground."

    I guess they won't be reading Slashdot.


    On the bright side, at least the NASA people aren't using WinXX for any of the "real" work up there. But I'd hate to see them lose any important scientific data to a crashed computer.
  • ...playing my son at home, over scrounged ethernet cable/NIC's. He on the Win95, Me on Linux. Too bad running on the better OS doesn't prevent me from getting my ars whooped by that 14 yr old kid every time we play... ;-)
  • Given that they won't be able to establish peppy TCP/IP links to run something like, heck, PCAnywhere effectively to do remote configuration and maintenance of the systems, this looks like an pretty bad idea. There are probably going to be situations where their only practical choice will be to ship up replacement machines or ship up an MCSE to keep things working.

    A Windows network can be a real bear to maintain remotely in situations where you don't have a WAN or realtime dialup access to fall back on. NASA is not staffed by Unix-phobic fools, though, so I have to cling to the hope that they've got redundant Tivoli or BackOffice servers in place, an ability to do network boot and a total wipe of the client machines, and the ability to wipe and rebuild the servers from scratch and then do data-only recovery from tape.
  • The critical services are not running on Windows. Windows is good for end user applications, but not for mission critical services ( as you seem to claim )

    Using unix does not require a sys admin on the space station as unix machines can be administered remotely ( and I would imagine that they manage the Solaris machines they have up there in this manner .... )

    I don'tknow how you substantiate your claims of "equal performance and stability". ROFL. I guess you are just trolling.

    Cheers,
    -- Elflord

  • Most controls in the station will be embedded systems. Its not like WinNT is going to be controlling the flow of oxygen.

    If someone needs to use a word processor, Word is as good (or crappy) as any. No, AbiWord, Klyx or any of the other lame-o linux toys probably weren't on the list. People in orbit can't be bothered to obsess over the openness of the QT libraries, GNOME support, or any of the other minutae that linux nerds give themselves migraines over.
  • Yeah, that's right, no one at nasa knows what they are doing. They should have called you.
  • Are you in space already?
    "intuitive enough so any competant person can administer the network in their spare time"

    My 8 year old can admin a 5 person network remotly from school during lunch. And yet again, classic mistake number 1: When dealing with a network, a UI doesnt make your job easier. Most of the time it makes it worst, by standing between you and the job at hand. Or worst, it makes a incompetent think he/she knows what he/she is doing...

    On the other hand, I thought the people going to the station would be highly trained scientists and technicians. Usually these people learned to use Unix when they got the tape from ATT for their PDP-11.

    As for UI, if you think Unix has no UI, your case is lost and closed. Go play solitaire.
  • I was the primary subsystem engineer on the data systems network some years back at JSC. At that time, the network was spec'd as a Dual-redundant 100 Mbps FDDI ring with a 50-Mbps Ku-band uplink. The system was supposed to actually be linked directly to the internet. LynxOS was spec'd as the OS with X-Windows and a plethora of wonderful control and monitoring applications. I can't believe that after 10 years and how many billions of dollars, we end up with thinkpads that are going to have to be rebooted every hour.

    All mine and others effort, flushed down the toilet with little to show in its place.
    I guess going back to school was the right decision after all, I just wouldnt have been able to take this had I stayed.

  • Yeah, the Windows environment is no doubt going to cause crashes and data loss and all that (unless NASA & gang are very lucky). But important scientific data being lost? C'mon, the ISS is about international politics, there is going to be very little in the way of science going on up there. There is only so much that can be learned by bouncing around in reduced gravitiy while feeding rats. Who cares if some of their "important data" is lost, it will just give them an excuse to shovel millions more in taxpayer dollars up there to upgrade their systems...
  • I'm currently using a 3Com 589D, with a combo adatper, both twisted pair and coax.. You can't switch between the 2 easily (the various drivers seem to assume TP), but it can be done.. I've done it at home before I can a TP setup..
  • Blue Screen in the sky from Redmond.....
  • That lowly simple worker has ten times the brains you do and probably makes ten times what you do. NASA doesn't hire stupid or shortsighted people.

    Nope. Salaries there suck. I can go there (have an offer), or I can find a job in industry in BA. Guess what I will do. Will not even think about that stupid goverment job.

    NASA engineers are not stupid.

    Indeed, but they are very conservative, and suffer a LOT from politically motivated managers. Goverment science is an horror show. Seen enough of it. Sheesh.


  • Politically motivated or not, these guys know their stuff and I don't think they would ever put the safety or comfort of the astronauts in jeopardy because of stupid politically-based OS decisions.

    You will be surprised, how many design and especially mission concept decision were dictated for political reasons. Of course we make sure that it does work. But usually there are other, and usually better, ways of doing things. NASA leadership is very politically motivated. They want cost reduction - grab off the shelf component - who cares that a specialized solution can be more reliable, and actually cheaper to maintain. They still to not count salaries of support pesonnel into the cost of the project - at least in our project (I am outside NASA, but do work on a project for them). I is really frustrating the way burocracy there work. This is the reason I refused to consider employment there, though the people are good indeed. Though the salaries are not high at all. Well, in comparison.
  • Good chemists tend to be using IRIX now, on SGI Origin 2000 machines.
  • Are you nuts !? this is not about doing sysadmin or not (which unix can do remotely _anyways_), this is about an astronaut's time being *pretty expensive*. Just the cost of waiting for a reboot is astronomical, in space. How many times did you reinstall windows, huh ? think at doing that in space, at how darn expensive that is. Talk about zero-administration costs =)

    Don't give me that crap - and keep counting how many times thay'll have to reinstall and (huh, huh) configure Windows crazy networking - you WILL need a sysadmin in space, after all.

    I bet a pizza that within five years of operation they'll switch the stuff to linux or solaris - the only things that got windows in space were the applications, not the OS. Remember that.

    (I'd rather run Wine - sheesh).

    10b2 draws zero power. It does NOT draw 0 time. that is going to be the real problem. And Yes, I would tell those guys at NASA what to do as much as to any other average joe who needs advice.

    This is going to be fun. Not for the poor soul on Eart who has to administer it, though.
  • But why force the astronauts to spend time learning to use a brand new, complex operating system? Why force them to use a different word processor, spreadsheet and e-mail program than what they've used before? Because can do that on earth, in the YEARS between missions. Windows reinstalls will happen in space instead wich is both uneconomical AND silly. And, yes, people know how to use windows. Did you read they are going to use Office ? How many times did that crash on you ? Of course they know how to use it - everyone does, I am posting from M$ IE - but what is convenient in Earth (rebbot - no big deal) is NOT in space. They'll either use those stations just for astronaut's e-mail and excel (in which case, unless you lose the data of an experiment in a crash, reboot is a good excuse for a coffee break) or they are headed for trouble. Hey, just wait - I am sure that with the current attitude toward computing, you'll hear CNN reports for the first two-or-three crashes that lose data that was important or ruin a million-bucks experiment. I don't care how many PHds they have at NASA - the guy knows what he's doing for sure. It will be nice to see astronauts replacing his 10b2 cable when anything happens, or cope with windows _oh so stable_ configurations and networkin'. "hey - I lost those drivers for the space telescope in the last crash" =) -- just kidding. Hey - You WILL SEE what good advertisement those crashes will be for the M$ platform. just wait and see.
  • Apart from the flame war I seem to have started, lets look at the bright side: most of ms-sided folks say it is possible to make windows stable. Some other guy will rather say "sure thing, just do not run it". What about a Stable-windows howto?
    It could _really_ spare a lot of people some serious headache and make life easier for power users. So... Should we ask NASA for the howto or... is someone up to the task ? Don't tell me "remove unstable *stuff* and it will work". too easy! Give us the procedures ! Do you think we don't want a stable windows installation just to be able to flame M$ ? Hey, most of us use windows anyways. So.. take it up the linux way! Show us what Windows can do. Or do we need to ask the NASA guys for this ?

    Hey - never thought this morning I would spark such a flame !


    (cool - I never replied to myself, before!)
  • Hold on... the specs I saw a year ago stated solaris on everything running Metro-X as the X window server with 100baseT. But this was the scientific and control system not the recreational system for the residents. I dont see NASA jumping on the win bandwagon when it's not on the shuttles, on anything in mission-control, and all their programmers are UNIX heads to begin with. NASA knows what mission critical means, and they would never put a microsoft product on an important system, maybe the entertainment system or the personal laptops for the crew to play doom,quake,etc.. but never for anything of importance. (the toilets on the shuttle run embedded unix! so NT isnt safe enough to flush the toilets!) remember this is CNN and they arent the most reliable, and this was a press release from a company I'd bet that is either doing the work or supplying the products.

    I will bet a nice shiny new quarter that Unix is doing the important stuff on the station.
  • Hey folks please note:

    Separate two thinkpads to run the station (with slowarez)...
    Did anybody think about this. Isn't this a nice opinion about M$ capability for use in mission critical environment.

    Once again note it is not even let close to the mission.

    And a second note - it is very interesting that the austronauts are not considered smart enough to use solaris for mail...

    Doesn't this cause thoughts...
  • 1. Get yourself a modern unix box. I would not mind hearing your opinion again after that.

    2. You did not read the whole article. Please note that UNIX is what is used for the mission. Windows is for toys...
  • Haha this is one of the funniest things I have read all day.. If the troll was actually serious I would be scared.
  • Seems to me there are lots of people making intellegent and thoughtful arguments for using a non-microsoft platform on the station, and then there is one or two people who can only come up with things like "fanboys" and "propeller-heads" to justify their pro-MS position.

    Cassius your whole argument boils down to the assumption that for the stations crew of _scientists_ that using unix is somehow a "change". Now no one here really knows what the crew of a space station was "brought up on", but seing as they will all be educated scientists, it would not come as a surprise to me if they are already used to working in a unix environment.

    I also happen to agree with the posters that mention the decision to use Windoze is more politically motivated than technically or logistically motivated. I worked for NASA for a time and I know how science and politics mixes there.
  • I hope their link is pretty fast. That way they can handle the bloat from the HTML, RTF, or WFT? file formats that piece of trash converts plain old text e-mail into. Christ, I've had to handle some email sent to one of our users in Word format.
  • I believe most scientists are *nix advocates. I have people here that won't touch a M$ OS when doing research work.
  • I guess they don't know how to use FIBER in space yet... I agree with everyone else, 10Base2 as a choice was pretty stupid. It ranks right up there with sending '95 and NT into space on COTS PC hardware. It's heavier, it's a single point of failure, its bandwidth limit sucks... I'd go on, but I'm foaming at the mouth as it is.

    I'd love to see how much trouble they have when they need a patch right now from their precious COTS sources. If I had to operate the thing, I would be screaming GIVE ME THE CODE - GIVE ME THE SPECS - NOW!

    Why is it we always end up with dinosaur brains designing "The Next Generation" platforms?

    • I fail to see how fiber needs all this weighty shielding - it pushes photons, and is usually the network media of choice in electromagnetically noisy environments

    • Fiber isn't even close to being bleeding edge technology - I was splicing fiber with hand tools five years ago, no problem

    • 10Base2 draws power - in fact, you can feed 12.5 volts to devices via a 10Base2 tap. I'm betting that laser diodes draw less, especially for multimode fiber

    • Who said this was going to be assembled in space? The modules go up pre-constructed

    • I can see the transceivers causing trouble - the damn things are so light, though, you could send up a few spares without feeling it

    Yeah, I was ranting... I just wish I knew more about why they made the decisions they did. It would appear at first glance that they could have chosen better technology for space.

  • One thing that I could find quite important for the recreational computers is power management. What was the last laptop you saw running some flavor of unix with power management? Every volt is precious up there I'd assume so why not use something that won't suck up all the power of the station if you leave it on for a bit?
  • Where do you want to get sucked out to today?
  • Proxim's rangelan/2 isn't supported by Linux. In fact, Proxim won't disclose a damn thing about the cards -- My University uses it for the wireless network here and is giving up on them for Lucent WaveLAN for many reasons, Linux compatibility being a major issue. I've emailed them many times about getting specs, with only requests for $20,000 for their source and an NDA for my troubles.


    Jim
  • Sure sendmail has it's problems, but it was designed to handle flakey network links....
  • Didn't Widndows failed some kind of a test (i think FIPS)?
    Doesn't it mean that goverment controled computers cant run Windows?
    NASA is govermental, no?

    Anyway - I can still imagine the movie:
    "Apollo 13 part 2: BSoD":
    They get GPF when trying to use both the oxygen and temperature control software at the same time.
    They try to escape but the spaceship wont boot!
    Too bad they didnt keep these rescue floppies, huh?
  • These astronauts,
    They're really stupid, right?
    They're the ones who failed school.
    They couldn't even get jobs at Burger King
    So they became astronauts.
    That makes sense.

    And ofcourse,
    Whats better than Windows for idiots?
    I guess a mac. :-)

    I guess it doesnt matter the stability of these computers,
    After all its just life support control and Millions of $$$ worth of research.
    Nobody needs oxygen ALL THE TIME.

    So go on astros, play solitaire.
    I guess that's a better thing to do than "learn how to use UNIX"
  • These astronauts,
    They're really stupid, right?
    They're the ones who failed school.
    They couldn't even get jobs at Burger King,
    So they became astronauts.
    That makes sense.

    And ofcourse,
    Whats better than Windows for idiots?
    (A Mac?)

    I guess it doesnt matter the stability of these computers,
    After all its just life support control and Millions of $$$ worth of research.
    Nobody needs oxygen ALL THE TIME.

    So go on astros, play solitaire.
    I guess that's a better thing to do than "learn how to use UNIX"
  • I agree with you.

    Astronauts aren;t briliant computer users, they may now nothing at all about computers

    With Fiber and 10baseT you have to run a seperate line to where ever for a hub

    If you have trouble with these specs, build your own space station.

  • In one NT lab I sysadmined on co-op, the NT server was a tad flakey so if you moved the mouse too fast you got the BSOD, So I just left it alone except to do backups.
  • For once, someone is dead on right. Windows 95 is a toy operating system that has a few haphazard add-ons (networking, PPP, DNS, FTP, etc.). These add-ons fall well within the specs of *their* mission (they need to f**k around with e-mail). So they put the evil, bastard computers from hell on a spindly little backbone and set them a chugging. Let's hope they don't run anything mission critical. Mebbe Windows works better in space :-).
  • Just had a horrifying thought of them actually running the station on the 95 Laptop, with Back Orifice installed :) I can just picture the scene with the K33l dUdEz on earth "Dude lets make it hit Mir for extra points.."
  • Anyone wanna start a pool on how soon the network'll crash..?
  • Your whole argument is based on an assumption for which you have no foundation: That it is somehow a change of platform for the crew to use Unix or Linux. Do you know the crew? Do you KNOW what OSs they are most familiar with?
  • Have you ever tried searching for scientific software? Then you'd know that there are huge amounts of Unix software out there written by scientists with a non-computer science background. For people with a long scientific career, you'll find a lot of Unix users, and a lot of Unix programmers.

Slashdot Top Deals

In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables.

Close