In space, no one can hear you kernel panic (2020)

This is also true of the space shuttle. The failover '5th' processor was running an implementation done by a completely different sandboxed team to hedge against institutional or systemic errors not caught by the first team. So much thought put into these systems.

This, in the context of 'modern vehicle safety standards' still makes me cringe when considering the "safety" put into modern autonomous vehicle systems.

The command module and lunar module each had one AGC. (The lunar module did include a simpler backup computer called the Abort Guidance System.)

I think this is because an AGC failure is recoverable in most phases of flight, while an LVDC failure is not.

> Worse is better?

Maybe if you know what the tradeoffs are and are ready to deal with the deficiencies (by rebooting fast). And didn't they had issues with the lunar module Guidance Computer on the first moon landing?

I think the lesson is that redundancy can exist at different layers

It all depends on the failure.

A transient bit failure in digital circuits? Then reboot and away you go.

A coding / algorithmic defect. Reboot and you are back in the same place.

Also, the AGC was directly interfaced to an astronaut. They could decide to ignore erroneous outputs from the AGC.

> There is a lesson to be learned here but I am not sure what it is.

Restart your Claude Code sessions as often as possible

On the other hand a lot of SpaceX's success can be attributed to applying modern software development methodology on spacecraft. They are very much doing agile development, betting on velocity enabling fast iteration.

That has lead to some of the best rockets ever developed, and the largest satellite constellation by far. But part of the secret sauce is creating situations where you can take risks. Traditionally anything space-related deals in one-offs or tiny production volumes, so any risk is expensive. A lot of SpaceX's strategy is about changing this, whether that's by testing in flight phases the customer doesn't care about, being their own best customer to have lower-risk flights, or building constellations so big that certain failure scenarios aren't a big issue (while other scenarios still have to be treated as high-risk high-impact)

The same way it will affect the incoming mission to the center of the galaxy. The space cloud is much more related to the incoming SpaceX ipo than to any phenomena of the physical or computing universes. Thermodynamics says "no".

Starlink very likely leans toward “many cheaper satellites that may fail” instead of “fewer expensive satellites that are less likely to fail”

Their advantage in the satellite-internet industry is that they can launch stuff fast and cheap; very likely this drives different tradeoff decisions than the regime this article talks about.