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I remember my statistics lecturer was fond of pointing out that NASA estimated the probability of SOMETHING failing on launch was (1). That is, because of the c
by tharax 14y ago
I remember my statistics lecturer was fond of pointing out that NASA estimated the probability of SOMETHING failing on launch was (1). That is, because of the complexity of the project, there was always something that was missed or broken - although it could have been as simple as a bulb that was backlighting a switch might be blown, or a cupboard might have been restocked incorrectly, or a calculation for external events might be slightly off.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoThis is the way complex systems work, pretty much. The more systems and sub-systems you need to have running the more likely it is that one will have something wrong with it. And when you add in redundancy and extra capacity you actually increase the chance of something going wrong, you just reduce the chance of it having such a negative effect on the mission.
- neurotech1 14y agoThey had a shuttle mission where everything was nominal, even the toilet kept working the whole mission. But yeah, space flight is like that. Then again its relatively rare for a jet fighter to consistently return Code 1, no faults. Usually its Code 2 with minor fixes required pretty regularly. Code 3 is an abort.
- stcredzero 14y agoThe human body is basically code 2 all the time. It's just that it can fix itself, until you get code 3.