Russians Point Fingers At US For Possible "Fatal Flaw" In Space Station

[kpete]

Russians: Possible 'Fatal Flaw' in Space Station
Russian Sources Tell ABC News They Suspect Americans Damaged Computers

By JIM SCIUTTO
June 15, 2007

A source inside the Russian space agency has told ABC News that there could be a "fatal flaw" with the station's main computer.

After working for a couple of days, the Russians still have no idea what the problem is, and they are pointing the finger at the Americans. They say that setting up the solar array sent electromagnetic interference into the computer, shutting it down.

"They did find that these were sensitive to this power noise and in fact, a couple of instances on the ground where activiating compressors around the test stands would cause them to have upsets and shut themselves down," Mike Suffredini, NASA Space Station Program Manager, told ABC News.

more at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3281714&page=1

[Captain Hilts]

1. Mighty bold talk from the folks that brought us 'Troubled Space Station Mir'. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. The only reason Mir was 'troubled' was that the soviet union was

collapsing and they couldn't afford the upgrades and maintenance that it needed. Mir was an astonishing accomplishment which survived its projected lifetime by several years.

NASA, on the other hand, shot off a multi-billion dollar lander to Mars only to have it destroyed on atmosphere entry because they forgot to convert some calulations from US standard to metric. Now THAT inspires confidence.

[Captain Hilts]

5. I lived in Moscow next door to a Soviet Space engineer who helped design it....

it was designed to last five years, it was up for more than eleven.

The Russians can design anything and can maintain nothing.

[seemslikeadream]

2. DON'T PUT MAGNETS BY YOUR COMPUTER

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.cobolhacker.com/%3Fm%3D200610&h=964&w=1688&sz=349&hl=en&start=36&tbnid=-zUhPPHhugSS7M:&tbnh=86&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmagnets%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

[cobalt1999]

4. "I have no idea what the problem is, but it must be YOUR fault".

Ummm, how about finding the cause first? Jeez.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. Crappy Texas Instruments computer chips... n/t

[NeedleCast]

7. Sounds Like Everyday Life in the Federal Gov.

Engineering: "We have no idea what's wrong with the computers. Obviously the training department screwed up."

Training: "Engineers are nerds and lack social graces. Obviously headquarters didn't send them the training materials we produced."

Headquarters: "We're headquarters. We do not make mistakes. We do make bad decisions. We do not use contractions. Obviously everyone else is to blame."

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

8. The term "Fatal Flaw" was used...Not Good, and they said...

(from the same article)

"On the positive side, the Russian space agency says that the station could fly for a few months without correcting its flight, meaning that even if the astronauts were forced to leave, there may be more time to fix the computer problems down the road. Russian astronauts wake up at 7 a.m. EDT to begin working again."

so they have no control of the stations flight. This is major trouble.