rodcorp: rodcorp: Transport systems, safety, mapsTransport systems, safety, maps, designBlood, dirt, and nomograms - a particular history of graphs- February 27, 2003 via robotwisdomhttp://www.journals.uchicago.edu/Isis/journal/demo/v000n000/000000/000000.text.html Cultural divide persists between engineers and managers at NASA- February 12, 2003 After the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman asked NASA officials what risk of failure each mission carried. NASA engineers said about 1 in every 100 flights was likely to experience a catastrophe. NASA managers put the risk closer to 1 in 100,000. Technical people tend to assess risk based on individual components, which can behave unpredictably in the hostile environment of shuttle launches and reentry. Engineers know that solutions...http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49325-2003Feb9.html Old but worth posting again: They Write the Right Stuff- February 12, 2003 How software is written for the shuttle. Not your average development process.http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html Shuttle: Columbia's timeline, and the future of humans andin space- February 4, 2003 Columbia fact-file Includes a timeline on which we can see that the project to build Columbia took from 1971 (project approval) to 1981 (maiden flight). A long development cycle. Washington Monthly reprints its 1980 essay on the drawbacks (dangers) of the shuttle: Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty: The main cause of delay is currently the shuttle's refractory tiles, which disperse the heat of reentry from the ship's nose and fuselage. Columbia must be fitted out with 33,000 of these...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105728/categories/transport/2003/02/04.html#a347 |