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From: lmc@denelcor.UUCP (Lyle McElhaney)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Chicago Tribune Article
Message-ID: <501@denelcor.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Jul-84 14:12:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: denelcor.501
Posted: Tue Jul 10 14:12:39 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Jul-84 03:20:00 EDT
References: <1434@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: Denelcor, Aurora, CO
Lines: 25

No, the computer will not go into the scrap heap (yet, anyway). Much more
important (at least in the NASA way of doing things) is to discover exactly
WHY the computer failed. It will most probably be sent back to the
manufacturer to be tested to death in order to find out whether the fault
was a fluke (and why) or whether it is a design error. Unresolved failures
in a piece of man-rated hardware are very serious. If the problem is found
to be a single error in that computer alone, and can be fixed without
stressing other components, and the computer can be requalified, then it
may join the available spare parts list. Testing may well stress it beyond
its useful life, and it will be scrapped, but not before the secrets of
its problems have been squeezed out of it.

This is one of the major reasons why the exploration of space has been so
expensive. In a commercial operation, that computer would be tested, and if
it failed, it would be scrapped and replaced. Another $1.2 million burned.
NASA will more than likely expend far more than the $1.2 million tracing
the error. The largest part of that cost per computer, in the first place,
is the paperwork that the manufacturer has to generate on each piece of
hardware in order that a fault can be traced to the exact step where it
was introduced. Yes, this probably kept a few astronauts from being killed
in space; but it has made space exploration a very expensive proposition,
indulged in only by governments.
-- 
		Lyle McElhaney
		(hao,brl-bmd,nbires,csu-cs,scgvaxd)!denelcor!lmc