Been hearing about the Columbia's onboard computer system but
ZERO actual details. Decided to check and found this plus other
sites agreeing that the Columbia was, in fact, using the 8086
CPU and - get this - 400k _total_ program code. Honest! The
four main computers were sync'g using software and not hardware
(how smart!). No info on the fifth backup computer but it was
setup using different software than the other four and I
suspect was equipped with the earlier 1805 CPU? 

They also supply 115vac to the cabin interior (so the men can
use their favorite electric razor?). 

Columbia was designed 30 years ago and was approx 22 years old
when she crumbled at 41 miles high and MACH 18. Sad that we
allowed NASA to put this huge piece of history back up there
again and destroy 7 people and our Columbia. :-\ 

My legacy systems are newer, have faster procesors, and use
more than 400k of code just to create this message! 

Time Magazine article: 

================= 

Why did NASA stick with the space shuttle so long? 

Though the space shuttle is viewed as futuristic, its design is
three decades old. The shuttle's main engines, first tested in
the late 1970s, use hundreds more moving parts than do new
rocket-motor designs. The fragile heat-dissipating tiles were
designed before breakthroughs in materials science. Until
recently, the flight-deck computers on the space shuttle used
old 8086 chips from the early 1980s, the sort of pre-Pentium
electronics no self-respecting teenager would dream of using
for a video game. 

Full article: 

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030210/sceasterbrook.html 

Gregg Easterbrook is a senior editor of the New Republic and a
visiting fellow of the Brookings Institution. Five years before
Challenger, he wrote in the Washington Monthly that the
shuttles' solid rocket boosters were not safe. 

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