Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!ll-xn!husc6!rice!titan!phil
From: phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Shuttle computer reprogramming
Message-ID: <1944@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 2 Oct 88 14:31:17 GMT
References: <6689@nsc.nsc.com> <6980@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <3665@homxc.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Reply-To: phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Lines: 41

In article <3665@homxc.UUCP> mrb1@homxc.UUCP (M.BAKER) writes:
>Also, the latest issue talks about the computers &
>display systems in Mission Control, and how they are just getting
>around to replacing Apollo-era stuff (monochrome text-only displays
>connected to old mainframes, which show messages in hexadecimal
>requiring look-up in a code book or reference card, etc.)

HAH!  There was a plan "in work" to replace the old Apollo-era consoles
with something based on workstation computers (Sun or Masscomp), but hope
for that happening any time soon went out the window with the budget cuts.
There is also a great deal of conservative-style inertia that prevents
such changes from taking place at a reasonable pace.  Right now, the only
real time data that the controllers see is read in from the downlink and
processed *only* by the Mission Operations Computer (an old IBM
behemoth---actually there are several available in case one goes down
during flight).  All displays are driven by the same computer.  There are,
naturally, some NASA types that believe that this is the only way to do
it, because it's the way it's always been done.  They basically don't
trust the "new-fangled" micro computers to process the data fast enough or
(maybe even) correctly.  I heard of a project that was to have a "proof of
concept" demo during this flight showing some sort of PC processing raw
data as it came off the satellite and displaying it in real time.  It was
intended to blow a few minds.  I don't know if it really demoed or what
happened with it---I've been too enthralled in the details of the flight
itself to even remember it.

Every controller position does have a Masscomp workstation that is
connected to the internal network, and they can use the Masscomps to get
chunks of "near real-time data" and to do other things (such as uplink
commands).  If you look closely on the NASA Select views, you will see the
Masscomps.  But the real time data processing---the consoles that
matter---are still driven by this old IBM thing.

[ Whoops, hope I didn't say too much. ]

	William LeFebvre
	Department of Computer Science
	Rice University
	<phil@Rice.edu>
	These are my opinions and mine alone!
	No one else can have them.  So there!