Second Mars mission failure in three months. Y2K related?

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Three months ago a Mars mission was a faillure. Looks like it is happening again. Also every Earth orbiting Satelite attempt this year has failed. Y2K related? There is no other explanation for it.

-- freddie (freddie@thefreeloader.com), December 04, 1999

Answers

This is in response to FactFinder on the one that was just deleted, but also related to the subject of this thread.

LOL Gordie!!

Hey FactFinder, I'm glad you brought this up, because there is an important lesson to be learned here.

Let's see, in September da gubmint geniuses spent $125 million to lose one spacecraft, now in December they spent $165 million to crash one into Mars. That means in the span of less than 3 months they spent $290 million to produce two major f**kups.

So now, tell us what can we expect from the $100 billion they spent on Y2K??

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), December 05, 1999.


Never mind FactFinder, I just did the arithmetic. Looks like the $100 billion should buy us at least 344.8 major screwups within the Federal Government from their Y2K efforts. That is assuming that the government Y2K computer wizards are at least "as smart" as the government rocket scientists! :-)

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), December 05, 1999.

What about the possibility someone got there first. This has been going on for quite a few years! :-)

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), December 05, 1999.

Sounds to me like the "faster, better, cheaper" idea isn't working too well... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), December 05, 1999.

The Martians saw what we did to the Indians. So every time we send something over, they shoot it down, hoping we'll get the hint and stay home, or at least away from them. ;-)

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), December 05, 1999.


Y2K related? There is no other explanation for it.

Considering that the landing site for the Polar Lander was on a planet 157 million miles away, there are many more likely explanations than Y2K.

If any is interested here is the Polar site:

http://missions.marssociety.org/mpl/msp98/index.html

-- Lurking on the sidelines (Alw@ys lurking.com), December 05, 1999.


3 U.S. and 1 Russian in the 90's - guess Mars is off limits.

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), December 05, 1999.



Check this thread out

-- dangermouse (dm@dm.ph), December 05, 1999.

The first Mars probe failure was a consequence of insufficient testing, hence the absolutely stupid and embarrassing failure due to incompatible units of measurement (English versus Metric) across the modules.

It will be interesting to see how this latest one gets dissected. And note that there was no immovable deadline for these, they happened due to normal, everyday buffoonery.

Y2K is a lot different. The deadline is fixed. The motivation to claim to have met it, no matter how unrealistic that things will actually work, is enormous.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 05, 1999.

Only One Shuttle Passes Y2K Test - (CAPE CANAVERAL) -- The Shuttle fleet maybe behind the Y-two-K curve. A-B-C News says only one has so far passed the test. The shuttle next in line to fly, Endeavor, is Y- two-K compliant. The one following it, Discovery, is not. With the current schedule jumping around as repairs are made to wiring on at least one of the ships, A-B-C says it may be that the compliant space craft will be flown closer to the end of this year. Whatever happens, engineers say they have definitely ruled out any U-S spaceship being in orbit on New Years.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/florida/story.html? s=v/rs/19990824/fl/index_2.html#3

(From August 24th.....link expired)

-- LOON (blooney10@aol.com), December 05, 1999.



My guess is because my Dad retired (ha!)..no kidding, he used to launch all of those satellites...but he retired over 15 years ago...naw...probably no connection..... :0)

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), December 05, 1999.

What, NASA forgot to factor in gravity? Or is there like a Soviet Star Wars sattellite circling Mars (the RED planet), and giggling its' proverbial butt off at all the great target practice we are giving it? Heh, conspiracy theorists say this one Russian probe to mars actually relayed a pic of a ufo firing a laser at it just before it "malfunctioned".

-- Hokie (n@va.com), December 05, 1999.

Well what I'd like to know is this:

Since the Y2k Doomer "experts", such as they are, are so interested in the welfare of humanity, and in trying to "help" (as in, Saint Leon the Kappelman, and Paula Gordon of Arc);

Why aren't they lending all their so-called technical expertise to help NASA in this time of need? They know all about embedded chips vis-`-vis Y2k, why not vis-`-vis Mars landers?

(maybe they realize that NASA would laugh them out of the building?)

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), December 05, 1999.


Chicken Little.........go ruffle your feathers elsewhere. Most "doomers" posting here are concerned about "survival" in the post Y2K aftermath. The conjecture of the "Mars" landing failure and possible links to Y2K is just one attempt of many to uncover and isolate the elusive points in the Big Y2K Dot-to-Dot Puzzle. I personally believe there could be many explanations for the landing failure that have absolutely nothing to do with Y2K..........cheaper, faster, better being the most probable on my list.

Bak,Bak,BakBakkkkkkkkkk

-- (mychickenlittleimpression) (karlacalif@aol.com), December 05, 1999.


My original post (now deleted) calling for some of the y2k "experts" to assist in the Mars mission recovery was making the point that cl makes - many of those who make grand claims regarding y2k in embedded systems are no more qualified or knowledgeable enough to do so than they are to analyze and diagnose the Polar Lander and Deep Space Probe (the two microprobes) problems.

This is an important mission, and although it's not looking good, it's not over yet. Of course the best hopes for fixing the problems are in the hands of the JPL team. I wish them the best.

For those who are speculating if this might be a y2k problem, may I remind you that this is still 1999. Do you have evidence that the embedded systems on the Polar Lander were doing "lookahead" forcasting with dates during landing? ;)

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), December 05, 1999.



FF,

What time zone is Mars in? {And what about daylight savings?}

-- flora (***@__._), December 05, 1999.


FartCatcher, you make two important mistakes in your logic:

1. folks on this forum have not studied the mars lander problem for upwards of a year and a half.

2. they couldn't give a shit about the mars lander. It is totally insignificant in the face of the y2k threat.

-- ! (@ .), December 05, 1999.


FactFinder- I didn't see your post here before it was deleted. Any idea why it was censored? I've never seen you use profanity so I doubt that was the reason. Just curious.

-- CD (not@here.com), December 05, 1999.

Chicken Little:

You've got it all wrong, bird-brain. Generally, you don't find a lot of doomers on this forum claiming to have a lot of technical expertise. But, then again, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to ask why so much money has been flushed down the drain on two horrendous Mars space probe failures.

Now, on the other hand, we DO seem to have a lot of pollies that claim all kinds of technical expertise. Like Maria, FactFinder, Cherri, et al. Likewise, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that these people don't seem to be able to spell "technical expertise" (especially Cherri), much less apply it.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 05, 1999.

KOS, Chicken little has worked on y2k in the power industry and has contributed to the technical discussions of y2k in the EUY2K forum quite a bit. He is knowledgeable and one of the true experts in y2k in the power industry, so of course you should trash him immediately, lol.

..@.., I will be glad to address any comments you have when you post using a valid email address and dispense with the silly namecalling. And just to be fair, I in turn will resist calling you a silly names such as "doomerpoofsniffen", or in English, "he who sniffs the farts of the Y2K Doom Gods."

Hawk, You make good points this time. I do expect to see the usual types of problems in any government program, and y2k is no exception. The problems I expect to see are in traditional IT software programs, not embedded systems so much.

CD, The deleted post was the same as the one posted to debunkers - I thought it only fair to post it here as well. I presume it was deleted since it certainly could have been construed as a "troll" post, or perhaps I offended by disparging someones favorite Doom God. I probably should have left off the names of the experts (i.e., not made it personal) and labeled it as humor. It is kind of funny that I have had entire threads from RC, Lane Core Jr. (at least seven or eight threads between the two of them), written for the sole purpose of attacking me and calling me all sorts of names (even in the subject line), and that is perfectly acceptable, lol. Actually I did find them amusing, and glad they weren't deleted.

I do believe that some here try to get good solid y2k information from various sources, and I commend those who do that, and in fact consider a few here more knowledgable in y2k embedded systems than a number of the wannabe "experts".

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), December 05, 1999.


You missed my point, FF. Having a technical background (or, as I suspect in many cases, claiming to have one) does not give someone the privilege of dismissing questions from non-technical people with the equivalent of, "Well, since you aren't a techie, don't ask." Non-techies have every right to ask questions, especially when THEIR tax money is going down the tubes on massive failures for what appears to be completely preventable reasons. (You know, like Y2K was preventable, if techies had understood that if you add 99+1 you get 100, which requires THREE decimal digits to represent....)

Chicken Little seems to think that anyone who challenges a conclusion based (supposedly) on technical considerations is not qualified to ask, unless they themselves have a technical background. I say chicken feathers.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 05, 1999.

Oh, ok KOS, I see your point now. Come on cl, answer the man, KOS is always fun to mudwrestle with..;)

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), December 05, 1999.


To answer the original question: Does a Mars Lander failure have anything to do with y2k? - no, it doesn't.

To answer the original implied question, "Does the federeal government know what it is doing all the time with respect to the science and technical world, when it apparently can't get its own spacecraft to fly straight when it is NOT facing absolute techincal and schedule limits, and when it has the best technical knowedge available at NASA to help? No, it doesn't.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 05, 1999.


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