[ale] OT: Space Shuttle Columbia

[Chris Ricker]

On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, James P. Kinney III wrote:

> We need another ground to space platform other than the shuttle. It was
> never designed to be more than a test platform. It is a testament to the
> engineering prowess that is found only in the US.  An amazing piece of
> technology handled by an even more amazing group of people.
> 
> We just lost another 7 of the best and brightest this world has to
> offer.
> 
> A very sad day, indeed.

My sentiments exactly.

On a Linux-related note, this last Columbia mission was the first test of
using mobile-IP to establish IP links between the space shuttle and ground
via whatever IP-capable satellite happened to be nearest at that time in
orbit. What little mention I've seen of that experiment in the press / on
NASA's pages indicates it was successful, and will hopefully be the basis
of continuous IP networking between ground and the International Space
Station / space shuttles / whatever replaces the space shuttles in the
future.... The computer on the shuttle being used for this was reportedly
an embedded system running Red Hat Linux off of a solid-state drive.

You can find a little about the project at <http://ipinspace.gsfc.nasa.gov/>.
CANDOS was the name of the project on this last mission....

later,
chris
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