Yeah one of todays chips could replace the entire elctro-mechanical, vacuum tube based shit we built back then. But getting that one chip is hard says the almost infinite funded agency.
Modern ICs can replace that old stuff back at mission control on the ground but in the hostile environment of space they're just too flimsy.
The problem isn't money, it's that NASA is faint shadow of it's former self. The people who built those clunky electromechanical machines were geniuses, not lazy diversity hires.
Modern ICs can replace that old stuff back at mission control on the ground but in the hostile environment of space they're just too flimsy.
There are supposedly thousands of satellites in orbit around the earth, dozens of missions to Mars, missions to Jupiter and its moons, and every other planet in the solar system. EVERY SINGLE ONE UTILIZES INTEGRATED CIRCUITS.
So explain to me again why we can’t send a man back to the moon?
SJWs will demand that it be a gay, black, transgendered man. Good luck finding one who has the credentials and can pass a mental health test in order to be cleared for space flight.
I was being too vague. I should have said they can't handle going through the Van Allen belt specifically. But that's a good point about the space probes. Maybe the computer thing is just an excuse for NASA's incompetence. Or the government doesn't want to go back to space, they want everyone looking down in the dirt like slaves instead of looking at the stars.
You could send a man back to the moon but why the fuck would you? Waste of fucking money. Also, they won't send a man. They'll send a woman. A black, gay woman.
actually, to put this into perspective, in 2011 we spent 1 billion more on just air conditioners in Afghanistan than the entirety of the NASA budget. not exactly that infinite.
https://gizmodo.com/air-conditioning-the-military-costs-more-than-nasas-ent-5813257
We didnt know about the dangers of radiation in the vanellen belt so it could hurt us back then.
Getting the chip is easy. Getting one flight qualified is impossible.
unless it's going to Mars
Or Jupiter, or the sun, or low earth orbit, or anywhere in space but the fucking moon.
Flight qualified isn't the issue. It's hardened testing. ICs and especially CPUs can experience random and bizarre failures. The analog stuff doesn't.
For example, you can experience anything from a bit flip in memory to line drivers experiencing logic inversion.
The hardening testing requires very expensive and lengthy testing with exposure to different types of radiation localized to specific circuits within the IC. Testing then documents the various failure modes.Then coders have to write code which accounts for the very complex matrix of failure conditions as well as self diagnostics if possible. Additionally checksumming of memory after writes and validating after reads kicks in; usually complimented with parity checking, which itself requires vetting. All of which itself requires test validation procedures and complimentary test suites to be coded. Which themselves require validation.
It's all very complex, very expensive, and very tedious. Needless to say, the CPUs available for space tend to be much older units because of less circuitry and few outside of DoD or NASA are willing to foot the bill for hardening testing.
All of which ignores that CPUs built specifically for hardening is custom with low yields. Which dramatically increases costs in of itself.
Flight qualified = hardened and tested for the application at hand - in this case "flight qualified" means aerospace ready.
SoS is why the RCA 1802 when to space.
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