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NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

npr.org

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Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#191

Post by eitland »

NeutronStar wrote: post #176
barkingcat wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the people downvoting this comment is why I will stop reading HN.

What did that comment actually bring to the conversation?

It encourages others to post more these comments.

Since comment scores was removed this is the only way to signal this to others besides the original commenter.

That said it should not be overused. If it annoys someone I guess they should downvote it but I don't think there is a need to reflexively downvote every time someone adds a friendly meta comment.

(And if people start gaming it for karma farming I guess it should be downvoted relentlessly until that stops :-)

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#192

Post by macintux »

Phillips126 wrote: post #33

Damn Windows updates... Getting downvoted so I guess I need to clarify I was being sarcastic. I work in IT and we say this a lot.

Humor that doesn’t contribute to the conversation is generally discouraged.

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#193

Post by acuozzo »

programmer_an wrote: post #29

Programmer/analyst here and ready to help you NASA, just ask me and I'll clear a few hours of my agenda for you. I know people say this a lot, but in this case I really think a (at least partial) rewrite in Rust of the Hubble software would be very beneficial. We could gather some of the most distinguished coders here in hacker-news and create a task force to show them the benefits of rust's memory safety.

Can you clear a few hours on your agenda for me?

I'd like to learn how to use Rust to work around memory corruption resulting from irradiating the hell out of the RAM in my PC at home.

I'm talking enough radiation to flip more bits than ECC is capable of detecting & fixing.

I want to do all of my programming remotely… right next to the the Elephant's Foot.

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#194

Post by steveklabnik »

lamontcg wrote: post #165
scoutt wrote: post #103

> At first NASA scientists wondered if a "degrading memory module" on Hubble was to blame. Funny enough, nobody posted the link to the article that says "70% of bugs are memory issues" (or something like that) yet.

70% of all security fixes Microsoft releases are memory safety bugs. https://news.hitb.org/content/microsoft-70-percent-all-secur... This isn't a security issue, NASA isn't Microsoft, and physically degraded memory isn't the same as a memory safety programming bug. I'll certainly bet that article is super popular with the rust crowd though.

That article specifically is popular with the Rust crowd, yes, but moreover, that roughly that number (70%-80%) has been replicated by a multiple big tech companies, not just Microsoft. Chrome was another large name.

(And yes you're right none of this has to do with this stuff, for sure.)

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#195

Post by pc86 »

kbelder wrote: post #190
NeutronStar wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did that comment actually bring to the conversation?

Conversation.

It's arguably even worse than just commenting "This." At least that is small enough you can scan over it and barely even register its existence. But this fedora-tipping "Thank you kind sir this is the type of Internet Content I enjoy!" doesn't even afford you that luxury.

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#196

Post by cameldrv »

trothamel wrote: post #120
qzw wrote: post #7

pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.

If you want to see debugging a computer in space, check out Apollo 13's sequel, Apollo 14. The moon landing is being held up by shorted-out switch that's causing the LM to abort the landing, and it's up to the programmers back home to figure out how to work around it in time to allow the landing. Apollo 13 was the story of a 'successful failure', while Apollo 14 shows how hard work and creative thinking can turn fail…

Don Eyles' book Sunburst and Luminary has a chapter on this, and Don was primarily responsible for the Apollo 14 workaround. The book is also generally just a fantastic account of what it was like to develop software for the Apollo Guidance Computer.

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#197

Post by 3pt14159 »

diamondo25 wrote: post #121
abnry wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job Posting: NASA programmer, needs at least 1 wpm typing speed and experience with compiling large projects.

The amount of preparation is much, much more than every other "accessible" installation. Typos are the worst to recover from, backspace usually doesnt exist. As I've sent commands to our Linux-running satellites, its usually prepending your commands with ctrl-c characters and a couple newlines at the end, just to make sure it runs and nothing is left in the buffer. There is also a possibility that commands get execut…

I'm surprised theres no error correction in your uplink. Crazy.

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#199

Post by desktopninja »

desktopninja wrote: post #62

I wonder if NASA would welcome a live worldwide collaboration to try solve this problem.

I doubt we (humans) can be respectful enough to each other in truly a global event where an individual partakes in the war room. What I'm thinking here is, and I admit a rather simplistic view ... here is the problem; here is how to observe/debug, submit what you think would be the solution. This would be reviewed/vetted.

Most likely school/college/university teams knowledgeable in the subject matter would be the "individuals".

Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope

#200

Post by quenix »

macintux wrote: post #192
Phillips126 wrote: post #33

Damn Windows updates... Getting downvoted so I guess I need to clarify I was being sarcastic. I work in IT and we say this a lot.

Humor that doesn’t contribute to the conversation is generally discouraged.

I'm not sure I understand this. Humor generally doesn't "contribute to a discussion"—it's purely that, humorous. I'm not sure how OP's comment contributes any less than any other joke one could have made.
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