That's made possible by some of the most ambitious computer software ever written, a rat's nest of 4 million lines of meticulously strung together letters and numbers.
Yet, just like the systems that run home computers, the station software harbors maddening glitches. There are hundreds of them, and NASA's flight controllers fear they need to be fixed before a human mistake -- in Mission Control or in orbit -- unleashes a crisis.
"It's just a matter of time before someone or something gets hurt," one controller wrote in a confidential survey of flight controllers conducted in November.
Controllers listed software bugs as the worst safety threat on the station. They said bosses are more likely to develop manual procedures for controllers or station crews to work around the bugs instead of fixing them.
There are more than 1,000 such "work-arounds" on the books now. Employees said the books documenting such glitches are thicker than the original software manuals. Controllers say they cannot remember all of them. They worry they will punch the wrong keys one day, beaming up a dangerous command by mistake.
Some controllers said not fixing the problems recalled the way shuttle program managers accepted the risk of external fuel-tank foam battering shuttle heat shields before that failure doomed Columbia.
But NASA station project manager William Gerstenmaier said the problem is not that bad. After reading comments in the survey, he said he ordered a review of the software bugs. The study found 39 posed a safety threat. The program hopes to fix those.
However, with complicated software performing critical tasks for a space station in orbit, Gerstenmaier and fellow managers are worried that trying to fix mistakes might introduce new flaws that may be just as dangerous.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2004 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of
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