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> the lander's computer thought it was ... > led the craft to believe it was... Don't anthropomorphize computers, they hate that. As an armchair space expl
by SixSigma 10y ago
> the lander's computer thought it was ...
> led the craft to believe it was...
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they hate that.
As an armchair space explorer, I would have imagined such a crucial part of the mission had serious redundancy.
- onion2k 10y agoI would have imagined such a crucial part of the mission had serious redundancy Redundancy adds either weight if you're computing things on two systems at once, or time if you're recomputing using different code. I'd guess that working out the balance between risk of failure, weight and time is a very complicated problem.
- pixl97 10y agoAlso redundancy doesn't solve a lot of potential problems. What if your redundant systems disagree? Which one is wrong?
- madaxe_again 10y agoIt probably did, and whatever went wrong went wrong across the redundant systems, which is why they're thinking it's a bug. It could be something straightforward that presented an unexpected input and made it behave in an equally unexpected fashion. I'd imagine they're currently replaying the sensor data to an instance on earth and seeing how it responds.
- dzdt 10y agoI think the anthropomorphizing in this case is fine. Someone familiar with programming easily takes "computer thought it was on the ground" as shorthand for "computer began executing subroutines designed to activate when the craft was on the ground." The anthropomorphized version is more concise for someone familiar with and more understandable for someone unfamiliar with the inner details of computer systems.