(TFT) Re: TFT Digest V4 #215

[Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu>]

At 10:41 -0500 11/14/11, JAy wrote:
> Okay...
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15698439
> Is this FOR REAL?!?
> I mean... I MEAN... WTF?!?
> Really?
> Is it just me or do Mars missions have a HUGE rate of failure?

They sort of do, don't they? Not sure that's statistically 
significant, but it does seem noticeable.

> The one that killed me was the english to metric miss.
> I don't think I believe it.

I've talked to enough people that were responsible or investigated 
that I'm convinced. There are several root causes; among the least 
recognized is a JPL/Caltech policy that reserves should be expended 
linearly as project milestones are achieved. The problem with that is 
that the majority of problems, and the expensive problems, usually 
occur during late testing of the completed or nearly-completed 
spacecraft, at which point the reserves which might allow the project 
to correct the problems properly have already been expended. In this 
case, several previous burns had shown "anomalous" results (that is, 
the metric/english bug had bitten them before) but they had downsized 
the operations staff to try to get back onto a previously blown 
budget and nobody had time to analyze the data and figure it out. 
Likewise, the Polar Lander bug (landing struts deployed, the shock of 
deployment triggered engine cut-off far too high, and the probe fell 
to its destruction) occurred in a test, but the test was not re-run 
from the start (to save budget and schedule due to lack of reserves) 
and the flaw was not identified.

> Not that I really think such things, but it makes a bit of ironic sense if
> the Martians were as bad at landing on earth as we were at Mars ah la
> Roswell.

(grin) well, we have not left any dead astronauts, taikonauts, or 
cosmonauts on other planets. Yet.
--
						- Mark     210-379-4635
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:

				Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
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