Apollo 11 And Its Balky Computer

Many, many words have been written about Apollo 11. It is, after all, one of the crowning achievements of the human race. Adding a few thousand more isn't going to add appreciably to the literature, but I doubt so much has been devoted to the guidance computer on board the lunar module. If you know your history, you'll know that Neil Armstrong had to take manual control of the landing procedure as the computer wasn't doing its job. Not surprising, it was 1969, computers weren't exactly powerful at that point.

Anyway, this is the story of that balky computer. Obviously, everyone wants to hear about the human triumph aspect, so I thought it was interesting to hear the tale of the first moon landing from a different perspective, and just how close it came to failure. And while the computer comes out looking pretty bad, Neil Armstrong comes out great. Seriously, he has to be the calmest, most collected human being to have ever lived. I'm not sure anyone else could have done what he did.

Opportunity's Still Going

It's been more than ten years since Opportunity landed on Mars, and the rover's still going at it, still sending back useful data, still trundling along at the incredibly rapid pace of a couple inches a second...at maximum speed.  Hey, over ten years, that adds up to, well, not that much.  A bit over 25 miles, which does surpass the record for most distance traveled on an off-world surface.

After so long on Mars, it's only natural that Opportunity has developed a few problems.  Frankly, it's amazing that none of those problems have stopped it, but they haven't.  In the past couple of months, the rover's been having computer trouble.  It's needed rebooting a dozen times, and the time has come for a drastic solution.  A complete memory wipe.  That will get rid of the glitches slowing Opportunity down, and allow it to get back to the mission.  According to NASA, this is a low-risk procedure, and Opportunity should be just fine.  It'll probably run better than it has in years.  So, hopefully nothing to worry about for the tough little rover.