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from the Actually,-breaking-up-is-NOT-hard-to-do dept.
Europe's Mars lander failed due to hardware and software inadequacies, according to a new report:
The crashed European spacecraft Schiaparelli was ill-prepared for its attempt at landing on the surface of Mars. That's the conclusion of an inquiry into the failure on 16 October 2016.
The report outlines failings during the development process and makes several recommendations ahead of an attempt to land a rover on Mars in 2020. That mission will require more testing, improvements to software and more outside oversight of design choices.
[...] The report authors catalogue a series of necessary upgrades to onboard software, as well as suggesting improvements to the modelling of parachute dynamics. They also recommended a more stringent approach - including better quality control - during the procurement of equipment from suppliers.
One of the recommendations is that NASA's JPL should double-check ESA's work.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:13PM (8 children)
They managed to accidentally find America, a few hundred years ago. They won't get much luck outside the atmosphere.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:12PM (5 children)
Europeans colonized South Africa, and South Africa gave us the most perfect Elon Musk. Ask any person of your generation about Africa (trust me, I have asked) and they will say without a doubt, South Africa is the only part of Africa that isn't Shit Africa. Negroes cannot govern themselves without the British telling them what to do, and only the British know how to colonize and leave behind civilization. These things you believe.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:22PM (1 child)
"Negroes cannot govern themselves"
There are many sides to that story. And, several sides are even true. But none of them are the whole truth. And, to tell you the truth, I kinda doubt that any person is smart enough to put the whole truth together. Either of us can point to specific points in time, or to specific actions, any of which might have changed history in Africa drastically. And, neither the Euro nor the African sides were exclusively represented by good guys, or by bad guys.
Which reminds me of Israel vs Arabia. Ain't no good guys in that little drama.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday May 26 2017, @12:01AM
Good? You can argue that, but better vs worse is no contest. There is an editorial cartoon that gets reposted a lot. It has four things from left to right. Terrorist, baby carriage (terrorist is crouched behind it and shooting) a gap then Israeli soldier in front of baby carriage in defensive posture aiming at terrorist. That pretty much sums up the difference. The Israeli military kills a few children by accident, mostly because the terrorists use civilians as human shields while the terrorists intentionally kill children and exult in the deed. There really is good and evil in the world and it usually isn't too hard to tell the difference. Some people, for political reasons, attempt to posture that there isn't, that evil is situational and relative, etc. But no, there is absolute evil.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:29PM (2 children)
They certainly knew how to wipe out a civilization to replace it with their own.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @06:27PM (1 child)
Indeed the British Empire set the standard for Nazi concentration camps during the Boer War.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @11:33PM
And it all went tumbling down back to the law of the jungle the moment they left, strange isn't it.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:25PM (1 child)
Must be the darn Metric system, which was invented after they discovered America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @12:39AM
Yes, if they'd never invented the metric system, then Mars Climate Orbiter would have made it. Oh, wait, that was NASA...