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NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

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Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#201

They are doing it all wrong. Who runs on-prem hardware these days??? They should put it all in the cloud, they can replicate and have many instances of virtual Voyagers, not the measly 2. CDN should help with latency too, I hear their latency is measured in many hours, and is getting worse every day! Also, software update, big deal - use CI/CD! They probably don't have a Kanban board either... Dinosaurs!

I’m sure the AWS Ground Station[0] team is already on it. Soon you’ll be able to provision deep space probes via API and deploy your workloads in containers. (I hear the latency for bringing one up makes S3 Glacier look like a rocket sled though.)

https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the vendors who supplied the Voyager program may have made quadrillions across the entire customer base for all we know. But there is no reason for a vendor to use the income from one customer to subsidize another. If you only pay $1,000 for an iPhone, you are going to get $1,000 worth of support. Don't be such a cheapskate if you want greater service, I guess?

Economies of scale are not a subsidy.

[deleted]

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the vendors who supplied the Voyager program may have made quadrillions across the entire customer base for all we know. But there is no reason for a vendor to use the income from one customer to subsidize another. If you only pay $1,000 for an iPhone, you are going to get $1,000 worth of support. Don't be such a cheapskate if you want greater service, I guess?

Economies of scale are not a subsidy.

That's right. Now, if you'd like to return to the thread...

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, that's cool. Do you have a link to the whole document?

To the memorandum? No! That would be fun to track down.

Looks like this, although a quick search doesn’t find it:

43. J. Wooddell, "Design of a CMOS Processor," pp. 2-3, files of J. Wooddell. 44)J. Morecroft to K. Frewing, "FDS Programming," January 14, 1975, files of R.J. Rice, Jet Propulsion Lab.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#205

I really have to hand it to NASA. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and it's still getting updates but we're supposed to be okay with the cell phones that launched 5 years ago no longer being updated.

If NASA had the means to swap the voyager 2 with a new version, they would do that instead. If you have the means to swap the phone with a new version, you would do that instead.

--- open source enters the chat ---

Opensource: if you had the means to swap the code with a new version, you should do that instead.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#206
post #183
post #78

Before: In 1994 JPL started working on the Remote Agent (RA), an autonomous spacecraft control system. RA was written entirely in Common Lisp despite unrelenting political pressure to move to C++. At one point an attempt was made to port one part of the system (the planner) to C++. This attempt had to be abandoned after a year. Based on this experience I think it's safe to say that if not for Lisp the Remote Agent wo…

What is the most Lisp-like type safe language?

Typed Racket probably.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#207

I hope this update doesn't come with ads and data collection to "improve my experience"

VoyagerOS Updated yesterday 529B Bug fixes and improvements, watered the plants, took out the trash. Keep VoyagerOS up to date to always have the best experience!

Depressingly accurate. How I hate these useless "changes" paragraphs accompanying YouTube and the daily Netflix app update on iOS and Android (why would a video player need so many updates to do exactly the same thing for years: show a selection, permit selection of a video, scrub, pause?!)

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1931256466260489.5 centimetres or, if you prefer, 3167950339119.439 giraffes.

Yeah, but how many football fields for us common people?!

How about earth equator-meter as a unit? or Equatometer?

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#209
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI and universal healthcare would enable _so_ many people to take risks that they can't today. We would see an explosion in the arts, in fundamental science, in passion projects like this. It would be absolutely incredible. Except according to half of the people in charge it would mean The Wrong People would get money and all they would do is buy drugs. And that's why we can't have nice things.

Is this about the US specifically? There are many countries with universal healthcare and a decent social safety net (Scandinavia comes to mind). Why haven’t we seen this explosion coming out of them?

Go there and look at how they live; that takes inspiration. The benefits of their social welfare are apparent in their lifestyle compared to US daily life.

And the flip: Shouldn't Scandinavia be overrun with drug-addled do-nothings if social welfare is so bad?

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#210
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI and universal healthcare would enable _so_ many people to take risks that they can't today. We would see an explosion in the arts, in fundamental science, in passion projects like this. It would be absolutely incredible. Except according to half of the people in charge it would mean The Wrong People would get money and all they would do is buy drugs. And that's why we can't have nice things.

Is this about the US specifically? There are many countries with universal healthcare and a decent social safety net (Scandinavia comes to mind). Why haven’t we seen this explosion coming out of them?

Nowhere in the world has UBI.

The Scandinavian social safety net is excellent and I think the positive effects of that are apparent. People can take larger risks than they can in the US, but still nowhere near as large as they could with UBI

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