(Roy Smith) wrote in :

The problem is that we're working with 50 year old technology here.
The idea that we can't reliably transmit one 24-bit message every 5
seconds is absurd.

NASA can transmit images from Neptune better than that.


True it's old technology, but we're dealing with a couple of things that
NASA doesn't have to deal with in sending images from Neptune - liability
and bureaucracy. There are several layers of bureaucracy involved with
changing systems within the FAA (not to say there aren't in NASA, either,
but it's more deeply entrenched in the FAA) and nobody dies if the images
from Neptune don't make it or are corrupted. Changing computers within the
FAA requires proving (not showing probability, or proving beyond a
reasonable doubt) that the system will work, and the system, if purchased,
has to go through a bidding process. Thus the computers at the FAA are
generations behind what is on your desktop (as are the computers in the
space shuttle) and the entire system has as much inertia as the entire
earth. I'm amazed that the FAA has responded to GPS as quickly as it has.

--
Regards,

Stan