No new year on the shuttle

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-11-06T191457Z_01_N06275670_RTRUKOC_0_US-SPACE-SHUTTLE.xml

NASA will not allow a shuttle mission to carry over into two years. That means if it goes into a new year, the software may screw up. This is not a bug, but a design requirement. Mission critical stuff has these kind of requirements.

With all the money NASA spends you figure they would get a working running clock so this wouldn't happen.

That's a nonissue.

It is a working clock. When you are NASA that needs to have as little bugs as possible, using a rollover for a day (from 365 to 1) may cause tons of other problems in other areas of the code. It is better to work with a system that you know will work correctly.

Like I said, this is a requirement of the system. There is no bug and if they did 'fix' this problem, it would not be a simple fix.

Said By Aron Schatz

Like I said, this is a requirement of the system. There is no bug...

Correct. It's the "I Don't Want to Work New Year's Eve" failsafe mechanism.

i thought i heard they were going to send a shuttle or probe near sun and examine it for some purpose soon........
has anyone heard about it? my teacher told me.

I doubt they are going to do that, as unless they used a very heat resistant metal, the heat of the sun would melt is in a heartbeat.

they are intelligent enough to keep it far away, even comets dont melt whole, the space probe will be much more heat resistant.

Said By Null

Correct. It's the "I Don't Want to Work New Year's Eve" failsafe mechanism.

I think that's the correct requirement in this case .