Computers Are Tougher to Fix on Mars

AP ^ | 1-23-04 | AP

[ambrose]

Computers Are Tougher to Fix on Mars

DUH! Ping...

[ambrose]

ping.

[ambrose]

The Viking probes, built using 1970s technology, survived on Mars for six years...

[Dog Gone]

Tell your computer to shut up!

[antaresequity]

Seems to me that if the software/firmware is corupted...why cant they just erase it and reload the whole program?

128 MB couldnt take that long to reload. You think the mother ship would have a back up copy of the software that could be beamed directly to the rover.

[TheAngryClam]

The microprocessor belongs to the PowerPC family, a version of which is still used today in Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh (news - web sites) computers as well as corporate servers and workstations.

No wonder it sucks. Get an AMD.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I'm not about to second guess the crew at JPL - they are the finest propellerheads going.

[DMCA]

And AMD chip (or an intel) would last about 3 seconds before the radiation caused it to go bonkers.

[Orangedog]

Computers Are Tougher to Fix on Mars

Nonsense. Just ask anyone at Dell. Why, they can have Sanjay...er...I mean "Steve" in the consumer tech support division in India call up the rover and walk it through several scripted reboot procedures just like the do here. It's more cost effective. ;)

[jaz.357]

Computers Are Tougher to Fix on Mars

So are washing machines.

[John H K]

They'll probably end up doing that but at the current low com rate it could take a really long time.

It's designed for all the software to be reloadable from earth.

Funny it has as much memory as a $100 MP3 player for jogging.

[Revolting cat!]

I bet the propeller heads never work from home. If they did, they woulda learned like the cat did never to crash their box at work, or they have to call and axe somebody there to walk over and push the button. Now what?

[Paleo Conservative]

Just ask anyone at Dell. Why, they can have Sanjay...er...I mean "Steve" in the consumer tech support division in India call up the rover and walk it through several scripted reboot procedures just like the do here. It's more cost effective. ;)

I bet that technician will tell them to take the image disk and completely wipe out all the data on the hard drive that wasn't backed up and restore the computer to its factory state. ;(

[DMCA]

Or the would have:

A: Expensive Way: Invested in Remote IP based power controllers, terminal servers (for systems that support management processors)

B: Cheap Way: X10 controllers & an X10 Firecracker hooked up to a serial port on another system that they could use to reboot their system.

:->

[Lawgvr1955]

I sure hope they kept the original shipping carton or this baby won't be taken back.

[freedumb2003]

"My name is Paul. First we are holding down the control key while simultaneously depressing and holding the Shift and Alt. Then we are going to the Martian Quicky Mart for a Squishy while we are waiting for the whole mess to come back online!"

[ChadGore]

http://www.iews.na.baesystems.com/space/rad6000/rad6000.html

Get a lod of this stat: Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) Greater than 375K hours

wow!

[Ichneumon]

The microprocessor belongs to the PowerPC family, a version of which is still used today in Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh

Well, *there's* the problem... (Now how do I ping all the Mac apostles to this thread so I can properly tweak them?) /smirk.

[Orangedog]

Mac kills JPL's inner child...