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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

#321

Post by slipframe »

perl4ever wrote: post #319
slipframe wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating buried lead: > A NASA history of the Hubble,[24] in discussing the reasons for switching from a 3-meter main mirror to a 2.4-meter design, states: "In addition, changing to a 2.4-meter mirror would lessen fabrication costs by using manufacturing technologies developed for military spy satellites." Hubble was derived from these spy satellites.

What's mindboggling to me is the sheer number of spy satellites that were more or less each equivalent to Hubble. There are estimated to have been something like seventeen of the KH-11 satellites, each one of which cost something like 2/3s of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen And there are an unknown number of its successor, but probably at least 3, where they updated it for…

Hubble was botched initially, they had to send astronauts up to fix it before they could get usable images out of it. I wonder what the success rate for those spy satellites was. Maybe some of them were replacements for others, replaced instead of repaired?

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

#322

Post by xwolfi »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #310
tharkun__ wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely not related to the topic at hand but ;) I love this "spend hours figuring out the API" then giving up. Maybe it's just me but I have noticed that a lot (and it mean a lot) of devs will overestimate greatly on anything manual they need to do that they don't like. And spend hours if not days trying to automate it. Which is fine if it's gonna be needed again soon or over and over. But really, what is so bad i…

I discovered this in my PhD. I spent 3 months trying to automate a process (running a finite element model atop very fragile software platform). I couldn't figure out how to automate my way around the errors the system would give me, every run was unpredictable in duration due to the errors, and I ended up spending a lot of time holding the system's hand. Eventually gave up on the automation and resolved to spend a f…

Normally if your eyes and hands are synchronized to do an operation, it can be automated.

Sometimes problems come from trying to automate at the lowest level, when maybe screenshotting a vm and sending a click at a specific position if the pixel colors change to the error condition could be done a bit faster.

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

#323

Post by spfzero »

not2b wrote: post #303
skissane wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often get the impression that some people (not the PC specifically) here are either ridiculously anal about English or genuinely do not parse sentences the way I do. People with autistic traits sometimes parse sentences in an overly literal or precise manner. I rarely do this anymore, but when I was a child and teenager I did it more often. When I'm speaking of "autistic traits", I'm not speaking just of people d…

But the headline is literally and precisely true, at least at present. At some point they may be able to figure out the issues enough to restore operation, but not yet.

They use “can’t”, meaning “can not”. Unable. That’s misleading, and no doubt intentional, to create more drama. The more accurate word would be “haven’t”, or “haven’t yet”, but that’s not alarming enough.

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

#324

Post by wmf »

perl4ever wrote: post #319
slipframe wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating buried lead: > A NASA history of the Hubble,[24] in discussing the reasons for switching from a 3-meter main mirror to a 2.4-meter design, states: "In addition, changing to a 2.4-meter mirror would lessen fabrication costs by using manufacturing technologies developed for military spy satellites." Hubble was derived from these spy satellites.

What's mindboggling to me is the sheer number of spy satellites that were more or less each equivalent to Hubble. There are estimated to have been something like seventeen of the KH-11 satellites, each one of which cost something like 2/3s of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen And there are an unknown number of its successor, but probably at least 3, where they updated it for…

If you go back a little more, they used to launch one or two film-based disposable spy satellites per month.

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

#325

Post by rebuilder »

tharkun__ wrote: post #290
geoduck14 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my work could benefit from a journalist > Overworked Engineer misses semicolon. All night review session finds it, data gets loaded! > Management insists Jira stories be routed to new Epic. Team Lead spends hours learning Jira API before giving up and doing it "the hard way"

Completely not related to the topic at hand but ;) I love this "spend hours figuring out the API" then giving up. Maybe it's just me but I have noticed that a lot (and it mean a lot) of devs will overestimate greatly on anything manual they need to do that they don't like. And spend hours if not days trying to automate it. Which is fine if it's gonna be needed again soon or over and over. But really, what is so bad i…

The real engineers spend weeks analyzing the pros and cons of a manual, one-time fix vs. building an automated solution.

And the even realer ones will spend years coming up with a universal solution to figuring out which is more optimal.

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

#326

Post by asavadatti »

idreyn wrote: post #104
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.

In case you haven't seen it: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/

What a fantastic website. Reminds me of Encarta 97

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

#327

Post by embeddTrway690 »

jcun4128 wrote: post #281
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than annoying. It comes part and parcel with the dumbing down of society.

I find a lot of content on YT is like that. The actual work is skipped hand-waved then it's every other second cut scene and some music on top... Idk. Started unsubscribing from channels lately. Still some good ones.

That's internet for most people. We are in a bubble and the bubble is actually much better than that.

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

#328

Post by jorvi »

ben0x539 wrote: post #246
jorvi wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I can understand both sides of the fence. 'this is why I read HN' is nothing but a slightly more verbal '+1', but as you stated it does humanize HN and makes it feel more social. In terms of downvotes, what really irks me and what I often see is people posting factually correct information, but still being sent into faded oblivion because some sect of the community's worldview doesn't agree with the facts.

I don't understand this viewpoint. Information being factually correct is a low bar. I have a lot of factually correct information that is irrelevant or misleading, or that I could state in a way that drags down the level of discourse more than it illuminates truth. Factually correct information is usually involved in tu quoque fallacies, or used to goad people into drawing false, non-sequitur conclusions. The Hacker…

The fact (heh) that people instantly rammed the downvote button to get what I said to -2 ironically proves my point. Oh well.

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

#329

Post by sunstone »

35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: post #107
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lesson not taught to any modern software developer. Instead they change things all the time for no real reason other than that they want to change things.

One of the best senior engineers I worked with taught me how to run an outage. The most important thing? Stop what you are doing, take charge, and get everyone else to stop what they are doing. The best case scenario of a bunch of engineers flailing about on a bridge turning knobs is that you luck into a fix but don't know how you got there. But you're more likely to make things worse.

I envy those innocent souls who have never heard of the concept of configuration management.

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

#330

Post by bfeist »

idreyn wrote: post #104
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.

In case you haven't seen it: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/

Hey there. I'm the author of the website. Thanks for the post. Happy to answer any questions.
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