home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: stc06.ctd.ornl.gov!msr!kennel
- From: kennel@msr.epm.ornl.gov (Matt Kennel)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
- Subject: Re: C/C++ knocks the crap out of Ada
- Followup-To: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
- Date: 22 Feb 1996 22:54:58 GMT
- Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, TN
- Message-ID: <4gis82$cqi@stc06.ctd.ornl.gov>
- References: <4etcmm$lpd@nova.dimensional.com> <JSA.96Feb19193423@organon.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: msr.epm.ornl.gov
- X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
-
- Jon S Anthony (jsa@organon.com) wrote:
- > In article <DMwFqr.EGD@thomsoft.com> kst@thomsoft.com (Keith Thompson) writes:
-
- > > The story that a Venus probe was destroyed by a Fortran error has been
- > > widely propagated, but it's inaccurate. The probe in question was
- > > Mariner 1, which was destroyed 4 minutes after launch on July 22, 1962.
-
- > So, does this mean that there are _no_ confirmed cases of probes lost due
- > software? If so, I'm impressed as software has just plain _got_ to be
- > the weakest link in the chain. 1/2 :-)
-
- I believe there were software problems with the Phobos Mars probes; improper
- instructions were sent which caused a terminal destabilization and loss of
- contact. And unlike NASA probes there was not a "failsafe" tracking mode
- that tried to find the sun again and beam back to earth if it got totally
- confused.
-
- Apparently there was a division between the "engineering" organization
- running the spacecraft bus and the Space Research Institute (IKI in
- russian) who were actually running the instruments and doing the
- science.
-
- Bottom line was that IKI thought the other people were totally
- incompetent and they should have run the whole thing themselves.
-
-
- > [neat info snipped...]
-
-
- > /Jon
-
- > --
- > Jon Anthony
- > Organon Motives, Inc.
- > 1 Williston Road, Suite 4
- > Belmont, MA 02178
-
- > 617.484.3383
- > jsa@organon.com
-
-