Aug 4 1991
From The Space Library
According to AP, antennas on six major spacecraft had malfunctioned during the preceding 17 months, threatening the crucial flow of information from missions. Accordingly engineers conducted extra reviews of antennas on Atlantis. Henry Hoffman, guidance and control chief at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said part of the problem was that antennas were increasingly large and complex, requiring folding for launch and problems arose when they were extended or unfolded. (AP, Aug 4/91)
Gregg Easterbrook wrote an article entitled "Space Agency Lost its Edge in Technology Long Ago," in which he criticized NASA's technology on the Atlantis. As an example, the computer system had only one megabyte of random-access memory in contrast to laptop computers available at Radio Shack with two to four megabytes of memory. The author attributed much of the loss of a technological cutting edge to overstaffing and government paperwork requirements as opposed to the rapid and creative activity of NASA's early days. (LA Times, Aug 4/91)
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