Question about the Space Shuttle program?

Question

I'm trying to settle an argument with a friend. He claims that NASA used Commodore and Atari computers on board the space shuttle in the 1980s (and further claims that the Challenger STS-51L flight had a gold Commodore 64 on board). Is any of this true? Wouldn't the extra power required by the components be too much for the batteries driving the shuttle's power?

Thanks,

Paul

Answer 1

I heard that the original shuttle computers were basically IBM360 mainframes repackaged for flight, but they have since been upgraded.

Answer 2

LOL, no, NASA does not use Commodore nor Atari hardware on the Shuttle. The machines are made by IBM and not very powerful compared to todays desktop computers. What your friend MAY have been referring to is the fact that an average Atari or Commodore home computer from the early 80's had about the same computational power as the Shuttle computer systems. BTW: Up to the mid to late 90's, the technicians that maintained the Shuttle flight computers tarting having problems getting spare parts for the machines. The original Shuttle computers used 8 inch floppy disk drives, which have not been produced since the mid 80's. They actually bought old drives on Ebay to keep those old machines going!

Of course, the difference is the the SOFTWARE on the shuttle computers. It is quite possibly the most debugged, and best documented software package ever developed. Every -single- line of code changed since the first flight has been proposed, tested, documented, and torture-tested extensively by a team of talented engineers and programmers in Houston. And there are 490,000+ lines of code.

I hear the binders that contain the paper documentation trail for these computers would fill a rather large room!

Unlike a personal computer, if the Shuttle computers blue screen, well, it IS the blue screen of death. There is zero room for sloppy, buggy code on that machine.

Answer 3

The flight control computers are specially designed military-spec AP-101S computers built by IBM. They are a cousin of the old IBM 360 and a direct descendant of the computers used on the old F-105 "Thud". The Primary Avionics Software System (PASS) is programmed in HAL/S a programming language written specifically for the space shuttle and to make it easier to develop real-time systems in a reliable and maintainable way.

However, astronauts have carried any number of personal computers on board the shuttle for managing their day-to-day tasks, performing analyses, and in some cases, managing experiments in the payload bay.

It wouldn't be the least bit surprising if Commodore and Atari computers were used in this way in the early 80s. They were the best available at the time.

And, the shuttle's on-board power systems are more than capable of running a few PCs.

Answer 4

i'm unable to trust the range of human beings that nonetheless imagine that we, meaning the U. S., nonetheless have a severe area application. The 1969 moon landing, that replaced into severe. The go back and forth, that's severe and it replaced into initially going to be the platform for destiny moon landings and so on. and so on.. Then that went into the bathroom. besides the indisputable fact that as we talk's projected moon landing, pill, thingy, isn't severe. it isn't severe because the international is in a recession and any application like that takes plenty and far of money. i understand there'll be many on right here which will say that i'm useless incorrect about the U. S. area application besides the indisputable fact that for my section, that is a pipe dream that NASA keeps feeding dreamers. once back, my opinion, until eventually there is international peace and the finished international needs to conquer area at the same time, the cost of the finished inflated fee that going to the Moon, Mars and fantastically previous won't be able to be supported with the help of all of us u . s .. As continually in organization there's a, base line and ninety 9 p.c. of the time that is money and the u . s . a . is broke like maximum all the different international locations. truth is we are doomed to this planet for a minimum of yet another hundred years or extra. My opinion.

Answer 5

I believe the shuttle computers used were the EQUIVALENT of those computers in terms of power, but Nasa would never entrust a multi-billion dollar piece of equipment to a consumer grade computer (it is all mil spec or higher). It is possible those companies may have subcontracted for Rockwell to supply computers, but they would be FAR from the production versions. The power system would not have any problem driving those computers, but the main computer systems are built in.

Answer 6

I don't get it!