US Space Shuttle runs on 1MB of RAM and 80’s technology…still

[mrstickball]

HappySqurriel said:

highwaystar101 said:

TheRealMafoo said:

As someone who has worked on Satellite hardware, I can give some insight on why this is true.

Electronic hardware needs to be Rad Hardened. This is a technique of shielding the boards and CPU's from radiation. A lot of the new stuff has just never been put through this process.

In Space, power is king. If a CPU can do every calculation you require from it, the one that takes the least amount of power is the best choice, regardless of age. The older Motorola CPU's fit this bill nicely.

I have been out of the government game for 6 years now, so not sure what they do today. But when I was working on a program just 6 years ago, with a 140 million dollar budget, we used 10 year old CPU's. Not because we didn't have any money or that government moved slow, but because out of all the CPU's on the market, they fit the requirement best.

Do you want to know something I just realised when you said you worked with the government?

A good portion (I'm talking 40%+) of libertarians I know have worked with the government at some point. I wonder if there is some correlation?

 

(answer:yes)

I’m far more of a libertarian than a conservative and, while I didn’t work for the government, my father worked for the government for decades. All I can say is that the more you know about "how the sausage is made" the less likely you’re going to "eat it". There are few private organizations which can ever become as corrupt as the least corrupt of government; and few private organizations which could ever get away with being as inefficient as the government.

I also worked for the government, and am libertarian. So I can vouch for the answer to be 'yes'.

It really depends on your outlook:

• If you enjoy your paycheck, don't care about your work ethic, and simply don't care about most of the people you serve, you typically will trend in that direction - more government services to ensure your job is sustained.
• If you do care about work ethic, and care about the people you serve, you probably will become a libertarian or some sort of other anti-government idealist because as said, 'You know how the sausage is made'. I saw tenure kill efficency at one of my jobs. We had people working there simply because they put in X amount of years, so they were entitled to earn Y paycheck, despite the fact that a new hire could do 2-3 times the work. Stuff like that weighs on you, but is commonplace in the US government. Look at our senators and congressmen.

And as HappySquirrel said, the government has a great non-compete monopoly in many different services, so corruption can be much more commonplace versus private entites because there is always the threat that a private entity may lose out to another entity if they become inefficent and corrupt. Yes, in government the parties may change, but you rarely see people (and I'm talking about your common to mid-management government workers) get fired over a new administration. When was the last time you saw a state fire a hoard of teachers because they had pledge to 'better your education' - yet at the same time, we see private entities field totally new teams in efforts to get other teams fired or removed if they are not good at what they do.

I'll end by asking this: if tomorrow, UPS was given the entire US postal service, and FedEx, nor anyone else was allowed to compete in that field, do you think that it would be better or worse in 25 years? I'd bank on 'much worse'.

 

@OP - The shuttle may have old tech, but that doesn't mean that anything remotely new is using such ancient tools. The shuttle already has a defined role, and the tools to accomplish it...Why upgrade it when it would not prove advantageous? On the other end, just take a look at probes that do use pretty modern tech (like cameras on deep-space probes that are just launched. Usually, the tech is pretty good).