a fun thing you learn about reading NTSB airline crash reports...

[blackbird9]

It's kind of hard to fly a plane that uses fly-by-wire if all your electrical systems are dead. That said, it's also difficult to fly a 'normal' plane if the cables are severed.

Better hope no-one lets off a high altitude EMP within a few 10s of miles of your plane...

 

[kent_dorfman766]

mille passum, 1000 steps of Roman soldier -> 1 Mile

ABSOLUTELY! When I taught land navigation that was one thing we made sure the students knew, where the mile came from...I guess it was some king during the middle ages who had to mess with the status quo and add 280ft onto the end. Of course the officially sanctioned roman soldier pace was a five foot stride.

 

[Alain De Vos]

Now in the U.S. they have statue miles , which differ from miles

 

[Alain De Vos]

Note , no motor , no electricity , no electricity , no control over the airplane.
No control over the airplane, impossible to control plane, to get motor again alive.

 

[atax1a]

I encounter a fair number of bad drivers on a daily basis.

okay, now imagine these bad drivers had an automatic driver program that let them largely ignore the task of driving. do you expect these drivers to get better over time due to the automation, or worse? i think perhaps you are not connecting the dots here.

 

[epower53]

mille passum, 1000 steps of Roman soldier -> 1 Mile

That doesn't pass the sniff test... 1 mile = 5280 ft = 1609 m. Divide by 1000... that's 1.6 m per step.

I think I'd pull my groin if I tried to take steps that large.

Edit: oh... Nevermind. They defined a step differently: left foot to left foot was one step (the use of the right foot didn't count, I guess?)

 

[Alain De Vos]

Double step

 

[Alain De Vos]

okay, now imagine these bad drivers had an automatic driver program that let them largely ignore the task of driving. do you expect these drivers to get better over time due to the automation, or worse? i think perhaps you are not connecting the dots here.

There was once a Russian trained pilot , an a European plane. He thought, like he was trained, i just shift over to manual, do a small dive to gain speed , restart engines. Bummer no manual on European plane.

 

[blackbird9]

Seems at least some of the astronauts personal systems run on windows...

Even Artemis II Astronauts Have Microsoft Outlook Problems

The mission commander’s email inbox failed during the journey to the moon. Have they tried turning the computer off and back on again?

www.wired.com

 

[Alain De Vos]

PS: I told them , heat your pee before flushing or you end up like USS Gerald R. Ford .

neomutt,claws,sylpheed where made for space travel.

 

[Crivens]

It's kind of hard to fly a plane that uses fly-by-wire if all your electrical systems are dead. That said, it's also difficult to fly a 'normal' plane if the cables are severed.

It is even harder to fly a plane against the combined strength of the booster servos when they get a bad sensor rivet. Egypt Air pilots might want to tell you, alas they have not won that fight. That was one of the cases where I had serious doubt about the QA in some places and added that manufacturer to my no-fly list.

Airbus had a nice case of fight-the-autopilot when a pilot wanted to avoid going trough a cloud. The auto pilot wanted to stay on course, but that stick was moved by a human, so he looked for a different way. After the pilot overruled the rudder as well, it was flaps, engines, ...

Seems at least some of the astronauts personal systems run on windows...

Didn't they learn from the "Smart Ship" fiasco of the USN? Head, meet desk.

 

[blackbird9]

According to this their personal gear consists of iphones and MS surface tablets. I'm a bit sad there don't appear to be any thinkpads running freebsd... they should have asked me first, I could have done them a special deal from my stack of old ones... I would even have installed it for them...

NASA Astronauts Use Smartphones and Tablets During Artemis II Lunar Mission - Houston Today

The crew members of the Artemis II mission, NASA's upcoming lunar flyby, will be equipped with the latest consumer technology during their spaceflight, including iPhones and Microsoft Surface tablets. This marks a shift from the more traditional space equipment used in previous missions, as NASA...

nationaltoday.com

It says the iphones are modified, although not how. I'm actually quite surprised, I would have thought rad-hardness would be a problem, especially with the ultra-small lithography in modern chips. But maybe they have really good shielding now on the modern spacecraft. Or maybe that's what the modifications are.

I can see in some of the videos they have tablets floating around, so the article is probably correct.

 

[Alain De Vos]

Seems at least some of the astronauts personal systems run on windows...

Even Artemis II Astronauts Have Microsoft Outlook Problems

The mission commander’s email inbox failed during the journey to the moon. Have they tried turning the computer off and back on again?

www.wired.com

“Your call is important to us! Please stay on the line until one of our trained representatives can assist you!”

music

”Did you know that you can find answers to most questions on our website? Just visit www.microsoft.com/help, then scroll down to our Frequently Asked Questions, log in with your registered Microsoft Account, find the section related to your question and then an answer will be emailed to you in seven to ten working days!”

music stops

”By-the-way: want to be able to access your email from Lunar orbit? Microsoft Outlook: Celestial Edition is now available for purchase from our Exchange Store!”


----------------------------

Microsoft-Clippy: "It looks like you're trying to pull an Apollo 13, would you like some help with that?

-----------------------------

space geolocation license will be available with next release.

 

[blackbird9]

Hahaha...

 

[blackbird9]

WELL... the phone call you don't want to get on your iphone in the artemis spaceship is the one from "microsoft support" to tell you your surface tablet has got a virus and they would like to log into it remotely to "fix it for you"...

 

[Alain De Vos]

You've been infected by "Bill Gates". For decontamination splashdown near "Epstein Island".

 

[kent_dorfman766]

The US FAA has this neat rule that says as a private pilot if you turn yourself in by filing an incident report then you get a free pass, but if somebody sees you do it and you don't report yourself then you run the risk of losing your license. As with most off-topic discussions this thread has run the gambit of related subjects. I myself am an auto-gyro buff. they are awesome but are traditionally more dangerous because pilot induced oscillations can get out of control and if you lose upward airflow thru the rotor then you end up crashing with absolutely no way to recover. NEVER NOSE OVER IN A GYRO!

 

[Alain De Vos]

 

[Alain De Vos]

 

[loveydovey]

Seems at least some of the astronauts personal systems run on windows...

Even Artemis II Astronauts Have Microsoft Outlook Problems

The mission commander’s email inbox failed during the journey to the moon. Have they tried turning the computer off and back on again?

www.wired.com

Yeah, they had bigger problems than Microsoft Outlook. That female's giant bush of hair almost crashed the entire spacecraft! Did you all see that? She was basically flipping switches with just brushing her hair all over the panels and the interior of the craft ALL THE TIME. That's literally attempted murder, she needed to have all that hair in a ponytail or a bun. And the fact that SHE didn't have the self-awareness to do that is pretty damning. They need to send NTSB to whoop NASA's bum because NTSB has their stuff together - female pilots are not allowed their hair to be uncontrollably floating around the pilot cabin, and for very good reasons. Such a major hazard.

 

[cy@]

I just read, astronauts on Artemis mission read stuff on screen like "miles per hour". Their brain is wired to it.

Except for the Canadian.

Below it all systems , design , programming , subcontractors , uses , one standard, "km / hour"

Which is what it should be. The scientific community uses SI.

 

[Crivens]

And the fact that SHE didn't have the self-awareness to do that is pretty damning.

Indeed. No matter her qualifications, no matter her skills (I don't know, maybe she IS the best for the spot) - now she will be seen as the quota hire.

But I can not say we are really off topic. Reading those reports made me a better engineer, seeing what pitfalls are there NOT to fall into. And aren't we here to learn?

 

[Alain De Vos]

- keep it tied back
- braided
- or short

To avoid it floating into eyes, obscuring vision, or getting tangled in equipment.

 

[Alain De Vos]

Note , they had put a data-cable close to fire-detection , there was interference, and fire detection glitches.
Note , they did not make a circle round the moon. Two reasons , reduce weight / cost , not enough trust in engines.

 

[Crivens]

Note , they had put a data-cable close to fire-detection , there was interference, and fire detection glitches.

I saw that in automotive when they started to use "expert systems" in optimizing the cable harness, for example.
One company had the genious thing in having all lines to airbags equally long so they fire at the same time, the "AI" then placed the airbag control module at a place where all lines were about equal in length. Happend to be right behind the front bumper. That got caught. Other things... not so much.