Engineers are capable of launching things into space, but the hamburger menu is only half visible on my IPhone XS running safari. What’s harder and more complex these days, rocket science or front-end development?
We've been going into space for 60 years, we've only gone to cyberspace for 30.
Is that because the problem is hard, or because the programmers have iteratively built up their laziness?
> there are many more moving parts
My current PM would code in ABL in the 1980s. Adding a field to a database and a CRUD app would take about two months, running on terminal hardware that the actual worker using it could not afford if he were to save up for an entire year.
Today, I add a field and an interface in about an hour, including automated testing for regressions, on hardware that the actual worker using it could purchase on a whim.
Targets: inclination, semimajor axis of altitudes, orbital eccentricity, longitude of the ascending node, true anomaly adjusted for launch time and ascent profile, argument of the periapsis.
So that's six deployment targets per satellite deployed, on hardware that is exposed to vacuum, variable 0-3 G's acceleration between both stages, heavy vibration and acoustical forces, temperature swings, radiation, etc.
However, I concede, SpaceX spaceflight engineers do _not_ have to target IE 6 anymore.
I assume the company has put the focus on the rockets ( as it should ) instead of the marketing, although they ( probably ) pay enough for developers / QA that can deliver the task right.
But my God do the engineering equations for fluid Dynamics are nuts when you have an open, changing, turbulent system.