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Comment by liendolucas | Hacker News Reader

Is this actually true? What's next? A BSOD? I would have ever ever in my life bet that Microsoft software could be shipped in a spacecraft carrying human beings. Unbeliveable.

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You're a couple decades behind the news. Basically every version of Windows since 95 has been on spacecraft carrying humans. The ISS notoriously migrated to Linux after a virus spread across their Windows XP systems.

But these things aren't running the guidance computers -- they're laptops.

Laptops have built-in battery backup lasting hours.

Are you suggesting that’s the reason they use them? They use laptops because desktops are too big. The laptops aren’t there as some sort of a contingency for a power loss. They’re there to do their research work. You know, how scientists on earth use laptops, and or desktops.

How do you know that? Desktop form factors are much more flexible, making them effectively smaller. They don't need a case - you can disassemble them, build them into cabinets and consoles; you can reduce their volume to a keyboard (or less).

They’re not looking for a science fair project, it’s a production piece of IT equipment.

Adding a bunch of bespoke equipment is an unnecessary risk when a well understood off the shelf product fits the bill. It’s just office equipment for doing basic computer tasks. A laptop is appropriate.

Much production IT equipment in industrial and many other settings is what I described. It's a mature, commonplace form factor. It's in cars (without keyboards), control rooms, server racks ...

That said, I don't know why they use laptops, and it doesn't look like you do either.

I’m not making things up. Much has been written about the use of PC on spacecraft. As it turns out, PCs make good PCs:

https://gizmodo.com/how-astronauts-use-laptops-on-the-intern...

https://web.archive.org/web/20160526014418/https://www.techr...

do you have a link on the virus part? I thought they moved simply for stability

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-spa...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=288028

> I would have ever ever in my life bet that Microsoft software could be shipped in a spacecraft carrying human beings.

Do you also worry when you are flying on an airplane where some other passengers carry a laptop running windows? Just because it is a computer and it is on a spacecraft doesnt mean it will harm human beings if it goes down.

If there was a possibility to hook that device up to any flight critical other stuff, or carry it in the cockpit maybe I would be worried. (am not the GP)

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