Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!eos!steve
From: steve@eos.UUCP (Steve Philipson)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Old fashioned control room
Keywords: controlroom  oldfasioned
Message-ID: <3158@eos.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 89 03:52:59 GMT
References: <2108@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: steve@eos.UUCP (Steve Philipson)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 44

In article <2108@botter.cs.vu.nl> wallagh@cs.vu.nl () writes:

>Last summer I visited (briefly) Houston Mission Control, and there
>I was showed around in the mission-control room.
 
>2 Things where very surprising:
 ...
>b). The equipment looks very oldfashioned.
>My question is: Why? The tourguide said: Because there no need for 
>newer equipment.
>I don't believe that. Personally I think it's to show to all the 
>poeple that NASA has not enough money to even make a modern control-
>room (and thus: give NASA more money).

   I worked on a project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop
science data analysis tools.  We used the Voyager mission to provide
sample data and generate sample displays.  The science investigators
on Voyager were using antiquated hardware for their displays, which
was quite understandable as it was designed and implemented some 14-15
years earlier.  It was still functional, but couldn't do what newer
systems could.  There was no desire to upgrade though, as an improved
system would offer little in the way of new capability (or so they thought,
anyway) and it would consume a substantial portion of their scarce funds.

   Our prototype was funded as a tool for future missions (after Galileo),
yet we were able to produce enough new functionality in a short time that 
it was used during the Voyager Uranus encounter.  Voyager scientists didn't
have to pay anything for it though.

   What we learned during this effort was 1) no one wants to spend money
on new equipment when old (even archaic) equipment does the job, and 2)
new technology must pay for itself by adding value, i.e. enabling some
acitivity that wasn't possible before.

   In spacecraft control (both for the Deep Space Network and Houston
Mission Control) systems must be checked out to a very high level of
reliability.  This is VERY expensive and entails risk (a mistake can cost
you a spacecraft).  Thus the value and merits of new equipment must be 
very high in order to justify replacing that "old looking" stuff.
-- 

						   Steve
					(the certified flying fanatic)
					    steve@aurora.arc.nasa.gov