Look back in time

[VEGETA]

Was wasting some time and found a pic of a OLD memory board



I have one smiler to this from a 386. It had 1 mb of ram and you could buy the chips (and I do mean individual chips) to get it all the way to 2 mb. So anyone remember these fun toys and cutting yourself on the back of them with all the sharp pins

[Jedi Master]

I've found boards like this lying around the base. Of course, half of them aren't old, they're current. You wouldn't believe the old equipment used to launch modern rockets.

[VEGETA]

Actualy I would beleave it. NASA and others like to use older tech. If omthing is 5 years old the thigns been tested, so you know what may have flaws and what don't. Also by the time some rocket is developed, say 5 years its based on 5 year old tech lol. But hey still cool

[Jedi Master]

5? If only! Try 25!

[Grifter]

Yeah Jedi is right...lol Most of the tech the gov. uses is near thirty years old. I would like to see them upgrade thier tech, but I dunno. Jedi, do they need to upgrade? Or is it "safer" to work with what you know...or? Personally, and I'm just speculating here, I would think it would be safer and more efficient for them to upgrade and use modern computer tech?

[Jedi Master]

Most of it is config controlled. They're not allowed to change it because this way is known to work. The main problem is obsolescence. No one builds this stuff anymore. So, they have to scavenge parts from dealers nationwide and/or repair the stuff themselves.
When they want to switch to a different piece of equipment made, say, during the Clinton administration, they have to do hundreds if not thousands of man-hours of regression testing to make sure it will work in every way and thru every failure they can dreamup.
Gator works with some expensive systems and has to deal with some caution there, but here they don't like to mess with things affecting the $100 million - $5 billion rockets too much. ;) A walk into these buildings shows you stuff basically installed between 1980-1990 for the STS program.

[Grifter]

Sounds modular... I mean, sounds like if and when a new NASA program goes online, they may purchase new equipment for it from the ground up? hmm. I suppose that would require replacing the SRBs though eh?

[Jedi Master]

Well, it depends on your definition.

There are launch systems for the pads, for the rockets launched, and for the range. I deal 99% with the range itself. They get used no matter USAF or NASA or commercial launch, manned/unmanned, cheap or expensive rocket. Telemetry comes in from numerous places and is fed thru these systems. From time to time certain parts do get upgraded, but they all have to be able to talk to the old stuff at the same time.

The most time the range is ever "red" for maintenance and such is around 2 weeks I think, even though you can go months between launches at times. They just want it working "because." To replace everything and test it would take years and the range itself would be down most of that time.

Sure the shuttle will go away and Orion will come in, but that doesn't mean Delta 2 and IV and Atlas V rockets stop flying. Plus we have those USN sub launches off the coast. The range is a glorified airport for rockets, where only the shuttle ever lands but they all takeoff. We can't stop launching EVERYTHING for a year or more, so upgrades are done in place and concurrent with the old stuff.

[Grifter]

Yah, I thought it would be something like that. Thanks for the explanation though Jedi. Very interesting.