NASA - Retards?

[slickdawg]

NASA wants Discovery back from its 12-day mission by New Year’s Eve because shuttle computers are not designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight.


http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061129/NEWS/61129048



Sheesh, my $10 watch can do that trick.

[Mixer!]

Yeah, but it was also made after 1976 (unlike the shuttles).

[Frozen Sooner]

Well, they're no rocket scientists, that's for sure.

[Vaevictis]

Retards? Nah, it's just not something it's designed to do.

In fact, most computers don't. Mostly, they just have a binary counter that they increment every so often; as far as that counter is concerned, 23:59:59 Dec 31 is different from 00:00:00 Jan 1 only a few bits.

It's just that there's usually software somewhere in the system that translates this internal counter into human readable format.

[StoopTroup]

Heck, I thought our Space Program would be much more advanced by the time I was 40+...

I figured there would be a McDonalds on Mars by 2005.

Wait...

http://www.ulujain.org/images/maconmars.jpg