Using Outlook From Orbit 268
Pigskin-Referee writes with this excerpt from Office Watch: "On the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station they use Microsoft Outlook 2003, but not quite in the same way that us earthbound Earthlings do. The space shuttle Atlantis is orbiting the earth right now and the crew exchange emails with the ground a few times each day. Bandwidth is a constraint and you don't want the busy crewmembers bothered with spam or unnecessary messages so NASA has a special system in place. The crew use fairly standard laptops running Microsoft Outlook (currently Outlook 2003) with Exchange Server as the email host, but they don't link to the server using any of the standard methods."
If you scream... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:80's tech (Score:3, Funny)
They are using Outlook/Exchange like a BBS that sends in digest mode only.
Actually the comparison is pretty much spot-on. When they're in transmission range, they download the day's messages as a QWK file...
Re:Bandwidth constraint? (Score:5, Funny)
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that Mozilla thunbird would not work in zero gravity.
To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a drunken weekend and $12 billion on Microsoft Outlook and Exchange licensing to develop a mail server that works in zero gravity, upside down, covered in stale beer, and old pizza boxes, and at temperatures ranging from below 10 to 25 degrees Celsius.
The Russians used Mutt.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
For all those years i wanted to shoot outlook into outer space, and they already did...
Yikes! (Score:5, Funny)
Just knowing Windows is running in space kind of gives me the willies.
Greetings Earthling! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you scream... (Score:5, Funny)
Ground control to Major Tom, ... ...
your laptop's dead, there's something wrong!
Can you read me, Major Tom?
Can you read me, Major Tom?
Can you
Here, I'm sitting at my laptop
far above the world.
My laptop's screen turned blue,
and there's nothing I can do
The lengths they go to... (Score:4, Funny)
...to use Microsoft software.
Because there’s limited bandwidth up to the shuttle it’s important to keep the OST fairly small so occasionally you’ll hear NASA controllers ask the crew to clean out their Outlook files
They ask them, over a realtime voice connection, to clean out their Outlook files to save bandwidth. That's like sending "You've got mail" as a WAV file after transmitting a 1kB mail file.
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Funny)
Just knowing Windows is running in space kind of gives me the willies.
Would you open Windows on the ISS???
Time Zone? (Score:3, Funny)
Do they have something to automatically change that every 30 seconds?
Re:mail (Score:5, Funny)
They have to be very careful in a close environment such as the shuttle or the space station to keep the air healthy. Using mailx like you do would give off too much smug for their filters and cleaners to handle.
Re:Greetings Earthling! (Score:5, Funny)
It's a trick! He's Vulcan.
Re:Mail Server on both ends (Score:5, Funny)
verbs and wishful thinking (Score:3, Funny)
If only that headline used "Nuking" instead of "Using" Outlook from Orbit.
My company recently switched from a really screwball lotus notes install to msexchange and thereby screwed every unix and mac user -- which is to say, 95% of the technical staff. Some of that I can't blame MSFT for, we do have some real chimpanzees on our email team, but the experience does have me shaking my fist in Redmond's direction even more than usual of late.
Hi! I'm Clippy, your ShuttleBuddy Navigation pal (Score:3, Funny)
I noticed you pushed a button on your console. Are you trying to steer your spacecraft? Please wait whilst Clippy ShuttleBuddy extensions for .NET 3.0 SP6 is installed, then after a reboot we'll get right on with that.
Re:80's tech (Score:5, Funny)
The question then is why use Outlook for such an awkward, for that tool, setup?
It came pre-installed on the shuttle computers?
Re:mail (Score:3, Funny)
You and your command lines, I receive my email as boxes of punched cards!
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:2, Funny)
Hey they are rocket scientist, not IT techs.
What do you pretend next, that they know how to build a rocket?
Oh, wait ....
Meeting Request (Score:1, Funny)
From: Oleg Kotov
To: CC Ops Ground Control
Subject: Check out what the toothpaste does in zero-G!
Location: COLBERT Room
Start Time: 2009-01-13 1745
End Time: 2009-01-13 1800
[Accept] [Decline] [Decline with comment] [Delegate]
NO WAY, USE THIS METHOD: (Score:3, Funny)
I use a 2400 modem to call google voice and record the e-mail. Then my computer uses dragon to transcribe them back to digital, then print. I use fed-ex (Hey, not too many donkeys around anymore ya know?) to send them to my mail box. I retreive them from the mailbox by walking up hill in the snow both ways! (but replies go back to the mail box on a belt system).
BEAT THAT!
**note above challenge was tongue in cheek, nothing was real, and if you so much as are reading this post today, you've already won.**
Re:80's tech (Score:5, Funny)
We also would have accepted 'UUCP'.
[weeps nostalgically]
Dear gawd. can you imagine typing the "bang path" to get your mail to the ISS?
Re:NO WAY, USE THIS METHOD: (Score:4, Funny)
BEAT THAT!
All the same, but with UPS instead of FedEx.
Re:Yikes! (Score:1, Funny)
Just knowing Windows is running in space kind of gives me the willies.
Would you open Windows on the ISS???
Only if I was under too much pressure...
Re:Mail Server on both ends (Score:4, Funny)
Same reason you bzip your bronze...
Re:Mail Server on both ends (Score:5, Funny)
The idea of NASA ground control needing to tell astronauts to "close outlook" on their massively expensive mil-spec laptops so they can do file transfers of OST files gives me acid reflux.