7 ms·

Voyager 1/2 is a pick of human achievements in XX century. A piece of hardware run by the computer having a power that today car keys have is flying for over 40

Voyager 1/2 is a pick of human achievements in XX century. A piece of hardware run by the computer having a power that today car keys have is flying for over 40 years in the space, outside Solar system, delivering priceless information. People do not realize how amazing engineering it must be. One can watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farthest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farthest to appreciate fully what all those great man did and are still doing.

anotherhue 3y ago
There's a second film that's a little more recent, was on Prime video last I looked. https://www.itsquieterfilm.com/ https://www.itsquieterfilm.com/
nickburns 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_NASA
detourdog 3y ago
The inverse is also true. This demonstrates how underwhelming current engineering is.
- queuebert 3y ago
  Or maybe hardware overkill. I have a soft spot for small, dedicated computers like the Apollo Guidance Computer that have physical buttons and simple functionality. The DDIs on jet fighters are another example.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    From my perspective microprocessor grew up around the general purpose computing model. Now the microprocessor power has far outpaced the the actual human needs the focus on general purpose is inefficient. I see efficiencies to be gained in the overall integration of very task specific computers in common network.
- malfist 3y ago
  Is it? Key fobs probably cost dollars to manufacture. Voyager cost $865 million....in 1977. Maybe my key fob uses compute power wastefully. But I'd rather it cost a few dollars than everything that needs that amount of processing power costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    I don't think a key fob is a good example. I think if you look at what goes into word processing for the average office or almost any other office task would be my example. My point is that early on general purpose computing was needed to drive the cost of computing down. I think we are past that stage and it is now time to look at making everything as simple and efficient as possible.
    - malfist 3y ago
      What does that gain you? I'd rather my stuff be inefficient, feature rich and cheap. Remember, your "simple" device is someone else's "missing critical features", your 80% isn't someone else's 80%. If I'm a manufacturer, why would I spend hundreds of engineering hours designing my widget to be efficient enough to run on an arduino when I can spend 50 cents more per widget and use an esp32 and not have to worry about investing so strongly in computational performance for computational performance's sake. If I'm a consumer, I care about the cost of the device, and the manufacturer spending hundreds of hours to make the software more efficient is almost always going to be more expensive than a different manufacturer that spent 50 cents more on hardware and much less on R&D.
      - detourdog 3y ago
        Everyone has to have their own beliefs and values. Mine appear to be at the other end of the spectrum from yours. I would prefer less waste with more care and thought.
- class3shock 3y ago
  I think most engineers from back then would be astounded with the engineering of today, not underwhelmed.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    I could see them being impressed with the human achievements. I have doubts if they would be impressed by the engineering. Everything I see looks more like the results of human hours spent. Consider giving those old timers the same problem with todays resources and I think we would get great results.
    - class3shock 3y ago
      I don't. Our ability to understand problems and validate our solutions for them before even a single part is made is so much more advanced today (in the mechanical engineering world) it would be astonishing to them. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by the human hours comment, I'm guessing that our advances today are more from low quality, high quantity work then ingenuity? Or something to that effect? I would say that might just be a result of the perception from looking back at a time of rapid advancement, where huge leaps occurred in a short time (and that we only look back at the successful end results, not all the R&D or the failures). Much of the slowness and expansiveness of engineering projects today is due to the increased use of analysis, validation, testing, quality assurance, etc. based on lessons learned from those days. Doesn't mean there is any less ingenious stuff happening, just doesn't stand out in the same way. As for giving them the tools of today, I doubt they would be able to do much more than the same caliber of people today. In many fields we are pushing the capabilities of materials, analysis, design, etc. to their limits. I would say the average engineer back then might be better but that's more related to the commodification of degrees than engineering getting worse. In 1970 you had about 9k meche's graduate for a population of 200 mil, in 2015 you had about 26k for a population of 320 mil. A 3x increase for only a 0.5x increase in population. I think the increase is due to alot more people being there for the paycheck, not the passion, which I think was much rarer back in the day. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_325.47.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_325.47.a... All that being said, the engineering/engineers of that era is/are amazing. I mean they did most everything with paper, pencils and slide rules. Slide rules!
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Tried checking out how they make the processors you're using to read this site on? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fOA85xtYxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fOA85xtYxs
  - detourdog 3y ago
    Compared to voyager I see that as more of the same and almost disposable. I have a large collection of technical documentation and physical artifacts of the same computer implemented as discreet components amd integrated circuits. The company had to invent the lithographic process to print circuits. So ASML is very impressive but could also be seen as a derivative idea.
    - magicalhippo 3y ago
      Seen that way, the Voyager probes are also very impressive but also a derivative idea. After all they were really Mariner 11 and 12[1], if not in name, not even the first interplanetary probes. Rather I think it's more interesting to view engineering as finding solutions to a problem given a set of constraints. In that sense I think both the Voyager probes as well as lot of modern engineering is quite remarkable. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_program#Mariner_Jupiter-Saturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_program#Mariner_Jupite...
      - detourdog 3y ago
        I would respond that Voyager is still going compared to Mariner. The Voyager project may be derivative but it has out performed all others. I would also lump all those early inertial guidance efforts of early computing together with Voyager as the high water mark.
        detourdog 3y ago
        I think what I'm holding in such high regard is the meager resources and lack of experience caused the development to stick very close to first principles. I think that most of the layers of technology today are actual intermediately related to the problem at hand. I want modern computing to a svelte as possible with a direct UI that maps to the human tasks and hardware that is tightly coupled to the physical world. Maybe someday I will have an example of what I think is good. I think I'm getting really close to what I see as 100 year computer aesthetic.
itsthecourier 3y ago
box office: $6,900 Human race advances in leaps by a super small group of dedicated people, we are all indebted to

anotherhue 3y ago

There's a second film that's a little more recent, was on Prime video last I looked. https://www.itsquieterfilm.com/ https://www.itsquieterfilm.com/

nickburns 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_NASA

detourdog 3y ago

The inverse is also true. This demonstrates how underwhelming current engineering is.

queuebert 3y ago
Or maybe hardware overkill. I have a soft spot for small, dedicated computers like the Apollo Guidance Computer that have physical buttons and simple functionality. The DDIs on jet fighters are another example.
- detourdog 3y ago
  From my perspective microprocessor grew up around the general purpose computing model. Now the microprocessor power has far outpaced the the actual human needs the focus on general purpose is inefficient. I see efficiencies to be gained in the overall integration of very task specific computers in common network.
malfist 3y ago
Is it? Key fobs probably cost dollars to manufacture. Voyager cost $865 million....in 1977. Maybe my key fob uses compute power wastefully. But I'd rather it cost a few dollars than everything that needs that amount of processing power costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
- detourdog 3y ago
  I don't think a key fob is a good example. I think if you look at what goes into word processing for the average office or almost any other office task would be my example. My point is that early on general purpose computing was needed to drive the cost of computing down. I think we are past that stage and it is now time to look at making everything as simple and efficient as possible.
  - malfist 3y ago
    What does that gain you? I'd rather my stuff be inefficient, feature rich and cheap. Remember, your "simple" device is someone else's "missing critical features", your 80% isn't someone else's 80%. If I'm a manufacturer, why would I spend hundreds of engineering hours designing my widget to be efficient enough to run on an arduino when I can spend 50 cents more per widget and use an esp32 and not have to worry about investing so strongly in computational performance for computational performance's sake. If I'm a consumer, I care about the cost of the device, and the manufacturer spending hundreds of hours to make the software more efficient is almost always going to be more expensive than a different manufacturer that spent 50 cents more on hardware and much less on R&D.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      Everyone has to have their own beliefs and values. Mine appear to be at the other end of the spectrum from yours. I would prefer less waste with more care and thought.
class3shock 3y ago
I think most engineers from back then would be astounded with the engineering of today, not underwhelmed.
- detourdog 3y ago
  I could see them being impressed with the human achievements. I have doubts if they would be impressed by the engineering. Everything I see looks more like the results of human hours spent. Consider giving those old timers the same problem with todays resources and I think we would get great results.
  - class3shock 3y ago
    I don't. Our ability to understand problems and validate our solutions for them before even a single part is made is so much more advanced today (in the mechanical engineering world) it would be astonishing to them. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by the human hours comment, I'm guessing that our advances today are more from low quality, high quantity work then ingenuity? Or something to that effect? I would say that might just be a result of the perception from looking back at a time of rapid advancement, where huge leaps occurred in a short time (and that we only look back at the successful end results, not all the R&D or the failures). Much of the slowness and expansiveness of engineering projects today is due to the increased use of analysis, validation, testing, quality assurance, etc. based on lessons learned from those days. Doesn't mean there is any less ingenious stuff happening, just doesn't stand out in the same way. As for giving them the tools of today, I doubt they would be able to do much more than the same caliber of people today. In many fields we are pushing the capabilities of materials, analysis, design, etc. to their limits. I would say the average engineer back then might be better but that's more related to the commodification of degrees than engineering getting worse. In 1970 you had about 9k meche's graduate for a population of 200 mil, in 2015 you had about 26k for a population of 320 mil. A 3x increase for only a 0.5x increase in population. I think the increase is due to alot more people being there for the paycheck, not the passion, which I think was much rarer back in the day. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_325.47.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_325.47.a... All that being said, the engineering/engineers of that era is/are amazing. I mean they did most everything with paper, pencils and slide rules. Slide rules!
magicalhippo 3y ago
Tried checking out how they make the processors you're using to read this site on? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fOA85xtYxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fOA85xtYxs
- detourdog 3y ago
  Compared to voyager I see that as more of the same and almost disposable. I have a large collection of technical documentation and physical artifacts of the same computer implemented as discreet components amd integrated circuits. The company had to invent the lithographic process to print circuits. So ASML is very impressive but could also be seen as a derivative idea.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    Seen that way, the Voyager probes are also very impressive but also a derivative idea. After all they were really Mariner 11 and 12[1], if not in name, not even the first interplanetary probes. Rather I think it's more interesting to view engineering as finding solutions to a problem given a set of constraints. In that sense I think both the Voyager probes as well as lot of modern engineering is quite remarkable. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_program#Mariner_Jupiter-Saturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_program#Mariner_Jupite...
    - detourdog 3y ago
      I would respond that Voyager is still going compared to Mariner. The Voyager project may be derivative but it has out performed all others. I would also lump all those early inertial guidance efforts of early computing together with Voyager as the high water mark.
      - detourdog 3y ago
        I think what I'm holding in such high regard is the meager resources and lack of experience caused the development to stick very close to first principles. I think that most of the layers of technology today are actual intermediately related to the problem at hand. I want modern computing to a svelte as possible with a direct UI that maps to the human tasks and hardware that is tightly coupled to the physical world. Maybe someday I will have an example of what I think is good. I think I'm getting really close to what I see as 100 year computer aesthetic.

itsthecourier 3y ago

box office: $6,900 Human race advances in leaps by a super small group of dedicated people, we are all indebted to