Computer Program That Analyzed Shuttle Was Misused, Engineer Says

new york times ^ | 8 26 03 | JOHN SCHWARTZ

[freepatriot32]

he computer program that helped NASA mistakenly decide that the shuttle Columbia had not been deeply harmed by a piece of falling foam would have predicted serious damage if used properly, said the retired Boeing engineer who developed the program.

The engineer, Allen J. Richardson, said the program, known as Crater, was never intended to be used in a mission to predict damage, as it was in Columbia's fatal flight. Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which is expected to release its final report on the disaster tomorrow, have disparaged Crater as a flawed tool. But Mr. Richardson said that it could have worked well in better hands, and could have served as a warning to NASA managers to order further analysis of possible damage from the foam strike.

"They did it wrong, flagrantly wrong," he said in telephone interviews this week. "They could have, and should have, done it better."

[DoughtyOne]

You know, I hate to beat on the proverbial dead horse, but the problems at NASA have got to be serious if it takes them eight months to say, "We f----- up!"

These are three little words that we were able to justify within one hour after the failed re-entry.

I might add, we nailed the problem dead on too.

Eight months! Imagine how long it takes them to go to the bathroom. 2.5 to 5.0 years?

[FReepaholic]

>>...You know, I hate to beat on the proverbial dead horse, but the problems at NASA have got to be serious if it takes them eight months to say, "We f----- up!"...<<

When was the last time ANY government agency admitted they screwed something up? Federal, State or Local, none admit effing up.

When was the last time you heard of a police officer apologizing for wrongly pulling over someone? They'll make up any reason for doing so, and so will NASA and other gummint types.

[DoughtyOne]

I'm thinking up a good rebuttal. I'll get back to you...

...in a few years. I can think of great examples on your side, but none for a comeback. ;-)

[Momaw Nadon]

[Lil'freeper]

Food for thought.

[Mr170IQ]

Life immitating art out of Douglas Adams's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency".

...

"I was the engineer on board and it fell to me to supervise the task of repairing the ship and preparing it to return to our main ship. Now, in order to understand what happened next you must know something of the nature of a highly-automated society. There is no task that cannot be done more easily with the aid of advanced computerisation. And there were some very specific problems associated with a trip with an aim such as ours -"

"Which was?" said Dirk sharply.

The ghost in Michael blinked as if the answer was obvious.

"Well, to find a new and better world on which we could aIl live in freedom, peace and harmony forever, of course," he said.

Dirk raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, that," he said. "You'd thought this all out carefully, I assume."

"We'd had it thought out for us. We had with us some very specialised devices for helping us to continue to believe in the purpose of the trip even when things got difficult. They generally worked very well, but I think we probably came to rely on them too much."

"What on earth were they?" said Dirk.

"It's probably hard for you to understand how reassuring they were. And that was why I made my fatal mistake. When I wanted to know whether or not it was safe to take off, I didn't want to know that it might not be safe. I just wanted to be reassured that it was. So instead of checking it myself, you see, I sent out one of the Electric Monks."

[sauropod]

I saw this earlier. Forwarding onto wm. Not sure if it is the same code or not. D.

[ctonious]

Life immitating art out of Douglas Adams's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency".

Ahhhh. Another Douglas Adams fan. This NASA debacle reminds me of another Douglas Adams monologue - the one where the spaceship computer fails disastrously in interpreting sensor data (Sensors are gone with the severed end of the ship) which the computer interprets as "Everything's fine." I think from book four or five of the "Hitchhiker's Guide" "trilogy".

Hard to believe Adams is dead at age 49. I always looked forward to a new book of his.

[Mr170IQ]

You mean this quote from "Mostly Harmless"?

This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authen-ticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void.

This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong.

Further investigation quickly established what it was that had happened. A meteorite had knocked a large hole in the ship. The ship had not previously detected this because the meteorite had neatly knocked out that part of the ship's processing equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship had been hit by a meteorite.

The first thing to do was to try to seal up the hole. This turned out to be impossible, because the ship's sensors couldn't see that there was a hole, and the supervisors which should have said that the sensors weren't working properly weren't working properly and kept saying that the sensors were fine. The ship could only deduce the existence of the hole from the fact that the robots had clearly fallen out of it, taking its spare brain, which would have enabled it to see the hole, with them.

....

I don't think it applies as well as the quote from "Dirk's".

[The Other Harry]

It doesn't really matter whether the computer program was used properly. They were all dead 81 seconds after the launch. Nothing could have been done to save them.

The whole shuttle program is a stupid waste of money. And lives.

[Chad Fairbanks]

I wonder if this was a Unix or Linux-based computer...

[Question_Assumptions]

They were all dead 81 seconds after the launch. Nothing could have been done to save them.

We don't know that because we didn't have the opportunity to try. Beyond the attempt to send up a rescue mission, they could have ejected the heavy space lab and tried to find a survivable (lower-heat) trajectory. At the very least, they might have made it to bail-out altitude. What I do know is that with the heavy space lab, the shuttle entered the atmosphere under the one of the worst case scenarios.

[dirtboy]

Computer Program That Analyzed Shuttle Was Misused, Engineer Says

Yet DARPA thinks the government can create a database that will detect terrorist activities, when they can't even run a simple, existing engineering model properly.

[DoughtyOne]

When it comes to data, what about the "data" (reports) from their agents that they completely ignored last time. These programs that see proctoscopes used on U.S. citizens, while we still allow immigrants from terrorists to run around scott free on our soil, tell me just what the goal of these programs are.

Putting this a genteely as I can, "SCREW them".

[DoughtyOne]

When it comes to data, what about the "data" (reports) from their agents that they completely ignored last time. These programs that see proctoscopes used on U.S. citizens, while we still allow immigrants from terrorists to run around scott free on our soil, tell me just what the goal of these programs are.

Putting this a genteely as I can, "SCREW them".

[dirtboy]

These programs that see proctoscopes used on U.S. citizens, while we still allow immigrants from terrorists to run around scott free on our soil, tell me just what the goal of these programs are.

There are two basic approaches towards dealing with failure. One is to examine your existing systems to see why they have failed and remediate the situation. The other is to do more of what has already failed in the hopes that more effort will bring about the desired result, which is how we got the Columbia incident and public skools.

[DoughtyOne]

This government is terrified of the American public. Either that or they just want complete control out of desire for total control.

The database on every citizen idea is completely foreign to the understanding of the relationship between citizen and state that I have always thought was proper. And these new surveylance systems are just drachonian.