NASA has finally become an agency ahead of its time. But not exactly the way it wanted.
The space agency’s final shuttle launch of the year may come as soon as Dec. 7. But that’s not due to any newfound efficiency or to any symbolic desire to take off on Pearl Harbor Day.
It’s because the shuttle’s clocks may not work.
That’s right. Discovery’s clocks aren’t designed to move from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1 while the spacecraft is in flight. NASA doesn’t know what would happen and it really doesn’t want to find out the hard way.
If this sounds familiar, it should. After all, it was just seven years ago that the world was going through Y2K anxiety. People feverishly checked every electronic system they could find to be sure the embedded clocks and calendars wouldn’t fail and shut everything down when the year 2000 hit.
It seems we missed something.
Of course, this one is an equal opportunity glitch — it could have happened just as easily on New Year’s Day 2000, 2006 or 2066. And it’s symbolic of a larger problem that we’ve called attention to before: the fact that NASA is long overdue to replace its shuttle fleet.
The shuttles have been fine vehicles. But if you run a vehicle long enough, problems will emerge, whether it’s an embarrassing programming shortcut or a loose piece of foam that leads to disaster. Sooner or later, it’s time to start over with something new.
For NASA, the clock is ticking.
Except, maybe, on New Year’s Day.
kst8wct (anonymous) says...
Yeah your article is a little simplified while ignoring the thousands of variables and millions of interactions that can occur to produce a problem during a shuttle mission. How much do you make? Can we take the billions of dollars required to establish a new shuttle program out of your pocket instead of ours?
November 14, 2006 at 9:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )