Sunday, May 25, 2003
ED LU'S JOURNAL
Ed Lu is one of the two men aboard the International Space Station as its "caretaker" crew pending a decision about resumption of shuttle flights. Here's the first entry in what I hope will be his blog from orbit, in which he recounts his ride "uphill" in the Soyuz crew tranfer vehicle. My favorite parts? He confesses to falling asleep once he and commander Malenchenko were strapped into the Soyuz, awaiting their liftoff. And then there's this, about the conservatism of system design:
Spacecraft are a bit like humans in that there are leftover characteristics from old designs that have remained but no longer serve a purpose, like your appendix or your tonsils. In the case of the Soyuz, even though there are new electronic displays, the commands are still sent using a matrix of commands where you specify the row and column number. This is simply a holdover from the previous Soyuz design, which had mechanical switches arranged in rows and columns. Now, on the high tech computer display, there is a picture of the old mechanical design, which you use to issue commands!
Makes sense.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:55 PM
