Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

[LynahFan]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

So here's more of a technical question... In theory, space travel has a pretty specific safety margin built into it, especially for electronics.

And there's no doubt in my mind that this new ship is WAY more advance relative to computers than all previous space ships. Heck, I would not be surprised that this ship has more computing power than all of the previous manned ships combined.

But combining the need of more strict computer and electronics systems and the massive step forward in the actual computers- what's the chance that there's some significant steps forward for normal people?

One thing I would hope for is an increase in coding safety and efficiency. Back to more what it used to be. We use way too much auto generated code these days, which makes the code SO much more bulky than it was even 5 years ago. I would think that much of that would have to be avoided just for safety reasons. But who knows.

For the rest of the computing systems- on the electronics side- have there been any significant advances to make consumer hardware better in the next 5 or so years?

In other words, will Space X help advance society like NASA did?

I know.

Software Safety is not magic or new. We have known how to build safe software for a long, long time, based on practices developed for the nuclear power, defense, aviation, and space industries. They all have their own flavors (e.g. commercial aviation is Do-178C, NASA is NASA-STD-8719.13, military is covered under the Mil-Std-882 which allows the use of the Do-178 methods in many cases, etc). So there are no technical hurdles that would prevent "normal people" from developing their code using these methodologies - they are published, publicly available documents that provide a guide for writing safe code AND testing it properly to *prove* that it is safe. The only hurdle is $$$ - rigor does not come for free.

For commercial/military software, the gold standard is that you need to estimate a full day of a person's effort for every 10 "SLOCs" (source lines of code) that you have. The F-35 fighter, for example, had ~30M SLOCs last I knew, so that's 3 million person-days of effort. At 250 working days per year, that's 12,000 person-years worth of effort. If you want to get it done in 4 years, that means that you need a team of 3,000 software engineers writing and testing your code. By comparison, Google is estimated to be 2B (with a B) SLOCs, so if they wanted to apply the same rigor that aviation does - no problem. It's just going to take a team of 100,000 coders 8 years to put out Google 2.0. Not going to happen - nor should it. I don't need my search engine to be as bug-free as my aircraft flight control system.

[alfablue]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

I know.

Software Safety is not magic or new. We have known how to build safe software for a long, long time, based on practices developed for the nuclear power, defense, aviation, and space industries. They all have their own flavors (e.g. commercial aviation is Do-178C, NASA is NASA-STD-8719.13, military is covered under the Mil-Std-882 which allows the use of the Do-178 methods in many cases, etc). So there are no technical hurdles that would prevent "normal people" from developing their code using these methodologies - they are published, publicly available documents that provide a guide for writing safe code AND testing it properly to *prove* that it is safe. The only hurdle is $$$ - rigor does not come for free.

For commercial/military software, the gold standard is that you need to estimate a full day of a person's effort for every 10 "SLOCs" (source lines of code) that you have. The F-35 fighter, for example, had ~30M SLOCs last I knew, so that's 3 million person-days of effort. At 250 working days per year, that's 12,000 person-years worth of effort. If you want to get it done in 4 years, that means that you need a team of 3,000 software engineers writing and testing your code. By comparison, Google is estimated to be 2B (with a B) SLOCs, so if they wanted to apply the same rigor that aviation does - no problem. It's just going to take a team of 100,000 coders 8 years to put out Google 2.0. Not going to happen - nor should it. I don't need my search engine to be as bug-free as my aircraft flight control system.

So then would keeping code lines down to a bare minimum be a good thing? Seems like it would, which should advance how coding has changed over the last decade. At least I hope. I really can't stand the modern autocode.

[alfablue]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

So is any one else thinking that when they launch Bob and Doug, the words are "take off, you hosers?"

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

Also, saw that unlike *EVERY* previous space mission conducted by NASA, SpaceX has revised the launch sequence (with NASA's blessing).

Liquid fuel is usually loaded into the fuel tanks before the crew is loaded (for crew safety, because of the volatility of the loading process), but they have convinced NASA that it's safe to load the astronauts and then load the fuel, then launch.

This seems like a crazy decision to me. Dynamic situations are almost always more dangerous and difficult to control than storage. I know this is liquid fuel, which is inherently hard to store, but I imagine storing is more easily accomplished than transport.

I'm actually really struggling to think of a scenario where a fluid that is more difficult to store than transport.

The only reason behind this I could think of is there are fewer people exposed as the support crew doesn't also have to climb atop the liquid fuel bomb.

[Kepler]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

Now that we're within 30 of launch the feed is the smart people. It's interesting.

Weather degrading and we may have a scrub.

[alfablue]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

Now that we're within 30 of launch the feed is the smart people. It's interesting.

Weather degrading and we may have a scrub.

But so far, so good- they started loading fuel at T-35.

The only weather thing they are worried about now is lightning. And we will hear that at T-20 or so.

[Kepler]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

The HD feed inside and outside is so amazing.

[alfablue]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

I have but one computer to watch.... NASA or SpaceX feed?

[Kepler]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

I have but one computer to watch.... NASA or SpaceX feed?

I have only seen NASA and it's fine.

[Kepler]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

Sounds like a no go.

[alfablue]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

Sounds bad now- if they could wait 10 min, it would be a go, but they can't. 2 more min.

[aparch]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

And scrubbed.

[alfablue]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

And scrubbed.

bummer.

[hockeyplayer1015]

Re: Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

Bummer, hope for better Saturday, 5/30!

[hockeyplayer1015]

I have but one computer to watch.... NASA or SpaceX feed?

I was on mobile at work, but was watching via NASA YouTube live stream, no issues.