Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!metro!socs.uts.edu.au!dcorbett From: dcorbett@ultima.socs.uts.edu.au (Dan Corbett) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Computer Controlled Landing? Message-ID: Date: 19 Mar 91 02:59:23 GMT References: <1077@uncw.UUCP> <1991Mar15.163810.17593@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: dcorbett@socs.uts.edu.au (Dan Corbett) Organization: Computing Sciences, Uni of Technology, Sydney. Lines: 22 In article <1077@uncw.UUCP> session@uncw.UUCP (Zack C. Sessions) writes: >Can someone settle an argument for me? I read when the shuttle first >came into being, that it's computer was so intelligent that it could >launch, orbit, and land all under complete computer control. I also >read a few years ago that while the computer is capable of landing >the shuttle, they haven't trusted it to do so yet... It sounds as if you were reading the NASA wish list of _desired_ funcions. They've been working on a program called AUTOLAND for years, now. In one of the early flights, they ran an early version of AUTOLAND in parallel with the pilot. The pilot had the real control. After the landing, the AUTOLAND data was compared to what the pilot actually did. AUTOLAND would have dropped them into the Atlantic (KSC landing, obviously). Ever since, NASA has had a hard time "trusting" the computers, as you so aptly put it. I left the shuttle program in 1985, so this info is getting old now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Corbett Department of Computer Science University of Technology, Sydney ------------------------------------------------------------------------------