authenticgeek

Core Memory Inside an IBM 1401 Mainframe

Nick O'Neill — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

Really detailed and fascinating look at how memory was implemented back in the days of punch cards and room-sized computers.

The IBM 1401 mainframe computer was announced in 1959 and by the mid-1960s had become the best-selling computer, extremely popular with medium and large businesses because of its low cost. A key component of the 1401’s success was its 4,000 character core memory, which stored data on tiny magnetized rings called cores.

Each bit of data in memory is stored in a tiny ferrite ring or core. These cores can be magnetized in one of two directions, corresponding to a 0 or 1 bit. The cores are arranged into a grid of 4000 cores, called a plane. To select an address, an X wire and a Y wire are activated, selecting the cores where those two wires cross.

First, if a wire through a core carries a strong current, the core will be magnetized according to the direction of the current (following the right-hand rule). Current in one direction will write a 1 to the core, while the opposite current will cause the opposite magnetization and write a 0 to the core.

The final important property is that when a core switches its direction of magnetization, it induces a current in a sense wire through the core (kind of like a transformer). If the core already has the target state and doesn’t change magnetization, no current is induced. This induced current is used to read the state of a core. A consequence is that reading a core erases it, and the desired value must be written back to the core.

Source

Apple's Custom 7xxx Series Aluminum for the 6S

Nick O'Neill — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

A breath of fresh air (science) in the never-ending media cycle that covers new iPhone rumors.

Last week, a new iPhone bending video was released by Unbox Therapy. It compares the shell of the current iPhone 6 to that of a new shell that’s said to be from the upcoming iPhone 6S.

…Lew’s basic conclusion holds: the new shell is far stronger than the current one.

But no “basic conclusion” is complete without a visit from the X-ray fluorescence unit!

The XRF results for the current iPhone shell say it’s a 6063 aluminum. The leading “6” means the primary alloying elements are silicon and magnesium, and that’s just what the elemental breakdown shows.

The XRF results for the new shell aren’t as clearcut. While it’s obvious that zinc is the primary alloying element, which means the alloy is in the 7xxx series, the software didn’t find a good match in its database.

The assumption being that the new shell is made from the same (or similar) custom aluminum alloy that was so widely touted for the launch of the Apple Watch Sport.

For example, a fully annealed 6063 (6063-O) has a yield strength of about 7,000 psi, while a solution heat treated and artificially aged 6063 (6063-T6) has a yield strength of about 31,000 psi.

By comparison, if we look at the typical properties of a 7075 alloy (commonly used in aircraft parts), the fully annealed (7075-O) yield strength is 15,000 psi and the solution heat treated and aged (7075-T6) yield strength is 73,000 psi.

So it sounds like we’re going to have significantly less bendgate this coming fall.

Source

Sony's VTOL Drone Prototype

Nick O'Neill — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

Interesting prototype drone from the partnership company between Sony and Japanese robotics firm ZMP, Aerosense.

It looks like counter-rotating blades on a transverse axle that can transform between rear-facing and vertical modes for level flight and takeoff/landing.

A couple aerodynamic things it would be interesting to know more about: In vertical mode, it looks like the body provides half a duct for the fan but possibly not for both propellers and definitely not on the back side of the drone. I wonder if the asymmetric ducting gives a slight forward push in this configuration?

And for level flight, the body clearly blocks the middle portion of the fan. On smaller scales like this it’s obviously not an issue but I wonder if the efficiency hit from this configuration would prevent scaling to higher weights.

A 15th way to Tile the Plane

Nick O'Neill — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

How many shapes are able to “tile the plane” — meaning the shapes can fit together perfectly to cover any flat surface without overlapping or leaving any gaps. Mathematicians have proved that all triangles and quadrilaterals, or shapes with four sides, can tile the plane, and they have documented all of the convex hexagons that can do it.

But it gets a lot more complicated when dealing with pentagons — specifically convex, or non regular pentagons with the angles pointing outward. The number of convex pentagons is infinite — and so is the number that could potentially tile the plane.

I love math like this that is comprehensible on its face but ultimately a super hard problem. Lots of great choices for bathroom tiles here, too.

Source

Infrared Video of an E190 Takeoff

Nick O'Neill — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

Infrared video is starting to come to the masses with devices like the FLIR camera but this is a completely different level.

I love the way the tarmac heats up behind the engines! That’s one of those details you never think about because you (obviously) can’t see in IR.

(the takeoff starts at 5:00 in the above video, embedding doesn’t want to take my start time parameter today)

You can pretty clearly see normal striations in the skin of the jet. I wonder if a stationary system like this at airports could monitor for defects or weaknesses in aircraft skin? That sort of thing can be pretty dangerous.

Science Isn’t Broken

Nick O'Neill — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

If you’ve seen the (relative) deluge of journal retractions over the past couple of years, you’re probably wondering why science is broken. FiveThirtyEight is here to tell you that it’s not, explaining the peer review process and the various ways in which it works or doesn’t.

Of particular note are the issues concerning either purposeful statistical manipulation of data or just plain old confirmation bias:

If you tweaked the variables until you proved that Democrats are good for the economy, congrats; go vote for Hillary Clinton with a sense of purpose. But don’t go bragging about that to your friends. You could have proved the same for Republicans.

The data in our interactive tool can be narrowed and expanded (p-hacked) to make either hypothesis appear correct. That’s because answering even a simple scientific question — which party is correlated with economic success — requires lots of choices that can shape the results.

This is interesting from a startup perspective as well. Traction is one of those nebulous things that isn’t all that well defined and can be shaped to fit the ways in which your company is doing well while ignoring the ways in which it might be broken.

I do wonder how much confirmation bias and statistical “tweaks” make it into investment decks - my suspicion is quite a lot - and does anyone ever take a closer look at that data before investing?

Startup-talk aside, it’s an interesting article all by itself. You can see my Highly summary as well.

Source

Heavily Modified Gulfstreams

Nick O'Neill — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

Among some of the weirder modifications done to Gulfstream planes were the changes for Shuttle Training Aircraft, a G-II that was used to simulate landings before astronauts jumped into the Shuttle itself.

Shuttle approaches were so steep — 20 degrees! — that the jets had to be operated with the main landing gear down and both Spey engines running in reverse at 92% N2.

N2 is a measure of the rotational speed of the high-compression stage of the engine, so 92% reverse N2 is almost full throttle in the opposite direction!

Source

Fusion Tech Improvements at MIT

Nick O'Neill — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 00:00:00 UTC

Fusion! Unlimited power! Superconductors! Yeah, this article is easy to dismiss as spin on fusion tech that is perpetually just ten years away. But two interesting things about this particular design:

It uses new commercially available superconductors made of rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting tapes that are capable of producing high-magnetic field coils. The stronger magnetic fields generated by these coils do a better job of confining superhot plasma, so the reactor can be smaller, cheaper and take less time to build.

and

…the solid cladding normally wrapped around the fusion chamber has been replaced with a circulating liquid. This eliminates the need to replace the cladding as it degrades, since the liquid can simply be replaced.

Both of these improvements cover issues that constantly come up in fusion “reviews”, particularly the cladding degradation issue. Hopefully this is a significant step in the right direction.

My biggest issue with this project? They named the damn thing an ARC (affordable, robust, compact) reactor, presumably in reference to the tech in Iron Man. Ugh.

Source

Buenos Aires as seen from SF

Nick O'Neill — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 00:00:00 UTC

We went to Argentina! Rebecca was in Guatemala for reasons in late October and continuing our tradition of traveling after other travel, we skipped down to Buenos Aires for two weeks in early November.

There are so many fascinating cultural details from far away places that I think about when I’m traveling and it seems that I always forget to write about them when I return. So I took some notes this time while I was away and this is my attempt at turning those into a cohesive post.

In particular, South America seems like it gets a lot less attention than other places which is particularly strange considering how European Buenos Aires feels. It’s familiar, but different.

While we were there we frequented the hip neighborhoods of Palermo Viejo/Soho which are more comparable to the Mission or Nopa area. There are plenty of fancy places in more upscale neighborhoods but we try to stick with the similar vibe we have at home, so keep this in mind when reading prices as there are definitely places to go for both cheaper and more expensive fare.

Foursquare was sometimes useful but often inaccurate in details. I’ve added tips, improved listings and included some of the best places we went to in this post.

transportation

Aeromexico was the cheapest option at the time of booking. Roughly a 4 hour flight down to Mexico City on a plainly equipped 737, then a couple-hour layover and another 9 hours to Buenos Aires on a much more comfortable 777. The flights down were smooth and uneventful, though we did have to swap planes on the way back through MEX.

Laying over in Mexico City, however, was a complete mess. I’ve been able to get through international layovers without much problem previously (as long as the immigration lines aren’t too long) but Mexico City forces you to retrieve your checked luggage and recheck it to your destination (presumably some sort of drug enforcement security measure). This took literally two hours in either direction. Perhaps this is planned into the layover times or I just happened to get lucky but it seems like an easy way to miss your connecting flight is to layover in MEX.

We planned ahead for a cab from the airport to take us into Buenos Aires though it was apparent when we arrived that it wasn’t necessary, lots of cabs waiting just outside to take you into town. One benefit of booking beforehand is that we were able to find a driver who would take dollars since we didn’t exchange money at the airport (more on this in a bit). It was a flat $30 into the Palermo neighborhood which isn’t exactly close to the highway. The ride back was a$300 (Argentine pesos, for the purpose of distinguishing) which we heard was pretty standard when asking around.

getting around

Do not expect to drive in the city unless you are very familiar with the cultural rules of the road. Stop signs, when installed, are rarely adhered to. Instead, most small intersections are governed by what seems like a giant game of chicken. The most ballsy driver is the one who crosses the intersection and the opposite direction waits until traffic in the other direction has slowed, or until they’ve slowly creeped into the middle of the street and won their game of chicken. Cars generally pay attention to red lights and busy intersections have pedestrian crossing signals as well.

On larger streets, lane markings are only useful as a theoretical indication for how many cars may fit horizontally on a street. Cars, cabs and busses go to where there’s an empty spot, regardless of the position of lanes.

Luckily, you don’t need to drive. Cabs are plentiful and cheap, which really highlights the flaws of the San Francisco cab system that allowed Uber and Lyft to pop up. A trip across town with some traffic in traffic is usually no more than a$100, plenty of closer locations are under a$50. Make sure your driver puts the meter on.

Pedestrians are an afterthought. Cars won’t slow down to let you cross if you wait at the corner. You have to just walk and make it across before they reach you, or you’ll be warned that you’re in the way with a honk.

Bikes are surprisingly well supported in such a car-centric city (widest avenue in the world and all) with a network of separated bike lanes that usually run on smaller roads parallel to arterials. There’s also a network of free yellow city bikes that you can take around the city, though I didn’t experience this myself. Bikes, obviously, yield to cars at intersections.

the peso and the dollar

Now, the promised digression about the Argentine peso: in the 90s it was pegged to the dollar but that fell out of favor during the 2001 crash and the subsequent uncoupling of the peso led to inflation and general instability. The government proceeded to fight against inflation over the course of the next few years, finally settling on restricting the flow of dollars into the country in 2011.

Restricting the supply didn’t stem the demand for the relatively stable dollar and the alternative “blue” rate sprung up, giving a gray market method for Argentines to get dollars which they need for major purchases like apartments. When the government again devalued the peso in early 2014 the blue rate really spiked and it’s been somewhere between 13.5 and 15.5 for the last few months that I’ve been paying attention.

The official rate has hovered around 8.5 so the blue rate during some periods has almost given you twice as many pesos per dollar. We were relatively lucky, arriving when the rate was close to 15 and exchanging enough for our first week. Subsequent exchanges for the second week were at roughly 14 and 13 and the rate is about 13.5 today.

There are plenty of other sites telling you how to find places to change dollars into pesos at the blue rate, I won’t go into detail here.

a short diversion on Argentine history

Buenos Aires feels like a city that hasn’t had much cohesive government direction and that plays out if you look at the history of government in Argentina. The Argentine history wikipedia page is long list of government control swaps on a roughly ten year schedule that isn’t just two parties going back and forth. Since 1900, Argentina has had conservatives, military rule, socialists and what seems like everything in between, separated by revolution, riot and coup d’état.

The government has been a relatively stable democracy since the early 80s but the economy hasn’t been so kind. The most glaring proof of this is the incredible architecture of the public buildings that are 50+ years old but obviously in a state of deterioration.

We heard from others about certain government restrictions that make no sense for an economy struggling to grow - no commercial import or export of alcohol for one - so I suspect that the government must think there are more important issues to deal with.

purchasing

If you’re traveling here, major costs will most likely be in dollars, apartment rentals included. In that sense, Buenos Aires isn’t unusually cheap. However, for incidental costs paid in pesos, the exchange rate makes it somewhere between a very and an absurdly cheap place to live if you have dollars.

Consider this: cocktails in San Francisco are never less than $10 and usually somewhere between $14 and $20. In Buenos Aires, you are unlikely to see a cocktail above a$100 (or as we frequently estimated, $7 at the blue rate).

We ate out for most meals - unusual for us, but vacation! - and generally spent a$50-75 for a plate and maybe another a$50 for a drink. Generally under a$300 for two people per meal which we felt was quite cheap.

In fact, I find myself balking at the prices in San Francisco upon our return. It’s not uncommon to sit down for a quick meal and end up with a $50 bill here so I’m glad we’re back to cooking at home as well.

There are a lot of boutique-y clothes places in Palermo Viejo, so you can do some shopping while you’re there. I got a couple tshirts and a hoodie (a “large”) for a$550 from various places, there are some very fancy fashion places in the neighborhood around Plaza Serrano also. The plaza also hosts a weekend street fair, some of which is out on Saturday but quite a bit more stuff on Sunday.

If you need to get more dollars, ATMs in Buenos Aires will not dispense them. You have to make the short trip by boat to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay to fill up on dollars if you don’t bring enough. More on getting to Uruguay later.

renting an apartment

Just briefly, we rented a place from RentBA.com which was fantastic. The owners were very responsive to our emails with myriad questions before we arrived and our checkin was smooth despite our late arrival around 10pm.

They didn’t have a ton of reviews out there so I was giving it a 10% chance that it was an elaborate scam and we would arrive with no place to stay but obviously that wasn’t the case. They’re 100% legit and awesome.

There are plenty of places on Airbnb in Buenos Aires as well but we booked fairly late and found a place we liked more on RentBA.

food and drinks

Beer in Buenos Aires was not at all like in San Francisco. You can get Quilmes - either the standard Crystal or other labels that tasted very similar - essentially anywhere and usually in 1 liter bottles. It’s the equivalent to cheap, light beer in the US. Various other local beers (and Heineken) in similar formats and tastes for around a$50 at the supermarket and similar prices for something on tap at a bar or restaurant.

There are a couple microbreweries in Buenos Aires that are very popular but the style is very light beer regardless of actual beer style. The craft brew scene is just starting to get popular, the breweries we visited were busy on most nights.

Wine is pretty incredible, plentiful and very cheap. Malbec is the style that Argentina is known for and it shows as 80% of the wine selection is just that. But it’s quite good and usually around a$100 for a mid-range bottle. We developed a nice 5pm wine habit while we were there.

We ended up stopping into a wine shop near where we were staying and getting about 16 bottles to bring back with us. Due to the excellent packing skills of the guys at Almacen Sabor Regional, all of them made it back intact.

As expected, the food was overwhelmingly meaty. There were a few vegetarian restaurants in Palermo Viejo/Hollywood but you are mostly limited to meat in large quantities.

If you never had the opportunity to try a fancy 12-course molecular gastronomy-style meal with wine pairings, maybe the exchange rate here will convince you to give it a shot. We went to Aramburu which, while the style was fascinating, wasn’t nearly the best food we ate while in Buenos Aires.

As for more local fare, NOLA has an incredible fried chicken sandwich and their other New Orleans-inspired items are super tasty. Plus the house beer, Bröeders, is pretty good.

Dinner hours are later than you’re used to, probably starting around 8pm. Particularly during the spring and summer (northern hemisphere fall and winter) the weather is warm at night and plenty of people choose to spend it at one of many outdoor cafes.

As you can tell, food style is typical of large cities; you can get the standard worldly cuisine throughout the city. Another nearby location was a tiny french place: À Nos Amours. The food here is fantastic and the menu changes frequently, usually three dishes to choose from per night. You would pay significantly more for french food of similar quality in San Francisco.

traveling from Buenos Aires

There are a couple options for traveling from Buenos Aires to nearby (and not nearby) destinations.

The closest is a 30 minute train ride to le Tigre on the river delta. It’s a small vacation town with some nice buildings and boat tours that take you around the delta to see houses and resorts that are only accessible by boat.

We knew that it had rained pretty hard for the last day or two in Buenos Aires but we didn’t know until we arrived that there was more than a meter of flooding in the delta area. Surprisingly, the boat tours were still running and once we were out on the tour we realized the extent of the damage that had been done. A case of inadvertent disaster tourism.

The main town has a couple places to eat and drink and a theme park for kids. It seemed like there was more stuff that should have been open if not for the flooding.

Two trains go in that direction from Buenos Aires. Tickets on either are something like $2. We took the “fast” (still ~10 stops) train from the central station out to le Tigre and the slower, coastal train back. The coastal route is more scenic and there are a bunch of small towns on the line where you can get off and walk around. We picked San Isidro but Barrancas and others looked nice as well. If I was going to plan a day out there now, I would give the train back and coastal towns at least as much time as I gave le Tigre itself.

San Isidro had a little shopping plaza on one side and a quaint restaurant and downtown area on the other. There were a few artist studios open in the area which were nice to check out. It would have been great to support some of the artists there but a lot of it was fairly large and transporting it back would have been a pain.

The coastal train back doesn’t quite take you back into the center of the city so you either have to catch a connecting train or take a cab the rest of the way back. Still worth it.

Alternatively, you can head out to Uruguay via ferry and spend a day in Colonia or Montevideo. It’s a little more expensive ($50 to Colonia, $90-$120 to Montevideo depending on speed of travel) but worth it to get out of the city for a day or two.

We opted to do the ferry to Colonia, a little historic town almost directly across the river from Buenos Aires. There’s a lighthouse and antique places, plenty of places to eat and some history to learn about. It was the perfect amount of stuff to see for a day, I definitely wouldn’t go for longer.

Colonia is the easiest place to get dollars near Buenos Aires. It was fairly obvious that people would come over on the ferry for the afternoon to do just that; the line for the ATM was long and you can hear people at the ATM going through the withdrawal process over and over again.

Montevideo takes a bit longer to get to, particularly the cheaper method (ferry to Colonia then bus to Montevideo), so it’s probably a smart idea to stay over for a night or two. I hear the beaches just north of Montevideo are very nice.

And if you’re really interested in taking advantage of your location in the southern hemisphere, you can take a three hour flight to Patagonia and see some glaciers and that sort of thing. The whole “trip within a trip” thing starts getting a little expensive in my mind so we didn’t do it this time. We would probably work it into the beginning or end of a trip to Chile or Argentina next time though.

next time!

Speaking of next times… I would definitely go back and spend more time in Buenos Aires or potentially Chile. The biggest issue I have is the length and layover of flights from the west coast. Plenty of direct flights to EZE from JFK, Houston or Miami but we don’t have a single one from the west coast and the most direct layover is through MEX which I definitely won’t do again.

Thanks for treating us well, Buenos Aires! We had a great time.

Something I missed? Something you’re curious about? Feel free to find me on twitter: @nickoneill

Codestarter's Chromebook for Learning to Code

Nick O'Neill — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:00:00 UTC

In my small experience with Chromebooks, they make a great guest machine for visiting friends and for personal use ChromeOS is somewhat hackable itself. For power users, given that the software is specifically designed for the hardware it’s being run on, you have a nicely paired linux machine - probably a better choice than trying to find linux kernel extensions for your custom built machine.

Although you can make ChromeOS a development environment if you’re into VIM or emacs, it’s probably the hardest way to get started coding. What if there was a linux laptop that was nicely paired to the software but was also a great platform for exploring and coding? And what if it only cost $250?

Codestarter, a nonprofit based around giving code-interested kids a laptop to keep, is doing just that. They’ve documented the whole process of turning a $199 Chromebook into a pretty awesome Ubuntu-based code machine. They obviously understand the kids they’re targeting given their software choices: Ruby, Python, Node, Java and, of course, Minecraft.

I can’t help but think this would have been incredible for me growing up. I’ve been in a bit of a 90s startup nostalgia fest as I’m reading Ben Horowitz’ The Hard Thing About Hard Things as it brought me back to all these company names I was hearing about during my early teenage years. I was absolutely insatiable for tech news and everyone around me had no idea what I was even talking about. I was reaching the limit of what I could learn from the Performa 6200CD that was in the house (to be fair, it’s amazing we even had a computer in the house at that time - I do credit my parents for knowing we should have one even if they were otherwise oblivious to how it could be used) and I wouldn’t have another personal machine until 1999’s iBook was introduced, and even then at significant personal expense for a kid barely in high school.

Between those two machines, I spent all the free time I had on various computers around my school (also remarkably prescient about the role computers would play in our lives) either fixing problems or just playing around. Eventually I would build a few linux machines (and one BeOS machine!) from scrap parts but time spent on these was mostly struggling to get the (sometimes ancient) hardware and software working together without the benefit of the now-pervasive StackOverflow-style sites.

The takeaway of all this text: If I could have spent $250 and had a personal laptop for the internet and code when I was in school, I would have jumped on that in a second. Which is to say the fact that Codestarter is giving away these laptops to kids who prove they’re interested in coding is absolutely amazing.

Rosetta Has Almost Arrived

Nick O'Neill — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:00:00 UTC

We’ve waited ten long years since Rosetta launched but finally, after flybys of Earth (three times), Mars and other asteroids, Rosetta will finally reach the Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet tomorrow. It’s already pretty close (as seen by pictures it’s sending back) but it will officially decelerate into orbit around the comet which is a first for humanity.

After mapping the surface for a while, it’ll achieve another first by sending the air-conditioner sized Philae lander towards the comet which should be able to grapple onto the surface and send back data about the general make up of the comet.

Between this and the New Horizons approach to Pluto next summer, we get to see the results of some very long term space exploration which is always exciting. Go science!

The Futuristic Orion Cockpit

Nick O'Neill — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 00:00:00 UTC

Someone at NASA clearly read my issues with the SpaceX cockpit layout while designing the Orion capsule. Note the easy to reach joystick and lack of information overload on the screens!

Seriously though, it’s interesting how similar the SpaceX and Orion configurations are. Just a few seats and a screen that folds down in front of your face!

How do I do that thing in swift?

Nick O'Neill — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 00:00:00 UTC

It took me a few weeks to get started but I’ve been working on a few projects in swift recently and my opinions have been ranging from “this is not very different that Obj-C” to “this is a vast improvement over Obj-C” depending on the task. I’d say that’s pretty positive considering the age of the language.

I’m constantly wondering what the correct pattern or syntax for swift is given the equivalent way of doing things in Objective-C so I started a little blog where I collect the examples that I find. It’s called That thing in swift.

Yep, everyone is making blogs about swift and I am totally on the bandwagon. The book deal is obviously right around the corner.

Swift deserves a longer post about the language in general, which will probably be here eventually. I would suggest an even bigger blowout post about WWDC in general but we already know I won’t sit down and write something that long.

We Don't Understand Gravity

Nick O'Neill — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 00:00:00 UTC

Adam Frank notices a critical breakdown around our expectation of flying cars: We’re masters of electromagnetism, not gravity.

It’s fascinating to think about, actually. Our high tech world is based almost entirely on the electomagnetic force. The electron and photon are the basis of most technological progress in the last hundred years. Or, as Adam puts it:

And the digital culture we’ve built rests directly on our ability to understand and manipulate electromagnetism’s quantum manifestations.

I tend to think this is a function of our scale. Humans are just the right size to casually probe the electron and the effects are clear. But manipulating the strong and weak force requires ever smaller and complex machinery. There is no intuition at play, just data. Gravity is another issue entirely, we’ve never even seen the particles used behind the scenes.

I wonder if we’ll ever see technology truly based on something other than the electromagnetic force. It doesn’t seem likely that another civilization could have developed on a different track and naturally harnessed gravity without going through electrons first.

UX Considerations for the Dragon 2 Spacecraft

Nick O'Neill — Fri, 30 May 2014 00:00:00 UTC

Yesterday evening Elon Musk presented the next generation of the SpaceX Dragon 2 module; the top part that actually makes it to the space station and back. The existing Dragon module has already delivered cargo to the ISS three times, splashing down in the ocean after reentry and descent via parachute.

The new Dragon 2 module is a step beyond that. It should descend through the atmosphere, slowed only by friction until it lights reentry and landing rockets (the SuperDraco rockets namedropped in the presentation video), slowing the craft until it comes to a comfy stop on the ground.

Awesome as that is, I didn’t start typing just so I could describe this thing to you. The configuration Musk revealed is for a 7-person crew, two of which sit at a control console which pulls down from the ceiling above them. And as Musk tried out the seats and explained the controls, the UX decisions jumped out at me.

Here’s a shot from the webcast of Musk at the pilot’s seat as he’s describing the controls:

He goes on to note that the pilot can take control of the spacecraft with the joystick above and to the left of his hand. Now, I’m not sure if you’ve used a joystick before but generally it’s more comfortable to rest your arm on something while you manipulate it. Not only is it a pain to hold your arm up for extended periods of time (this is why we don’t all have giant touchscreen iMacs) but you get much better fine control of your hand and wrist when your lower arm is supported. So move that sucker down to just above the arm rest in the center.

Before you all shout “But there’s no gravity in space! Holding your arm up is trivial!” at once, keep in mind that the stabilization argument still holds in zero G and you may have to use the joystick during high-G periods at launch or descent.

Secondly, some of those buttons seem pretty far away from both the pilot and copilot. Having the control panel rotate down means you gain a lot of space that would otherwise be used for astronaut ingress and egress, let’s take advantage of it! Now that we have some extra space that’s just been freed up from moving the joystick, and assuming we’re clear of the bulky astronaut suits, line those buttons up along the bottom of the displays so the pilot and copilot can get to them easily.

On the extreme side, the Soyuz control panel is so far away from the pilots that they have to use a little extension stick (called a ‘ykazka’) to push buttons. Let’s not do that.

With those modifications in place, the new configuration looks like this:

Much more suitable! Those were the glaring issues I saw with the layout but I’m also slightly concerned with the size and proximity of those screens to the astronauts’ faces. The important information should all sit within a space that can be focused on easily, everything extraneous demoted in brightness and location.

I have no idea what information is shown on the displays themselves but I suspect that it’s too much. It looks like two vertically-oriented 24” displays sitting a foot in front of your face! That’s a ton of distracting material and it would probably overload the pilot if they needed to take control and understand the state of the craft in a hurry. We’ve made a bit of space in the center of the console where the buttons used to be, it’s possible we could condense the second screen for each pilot into a central shared screen with less critical info.

It seemed pretty obvious that the whole thing is a mock up but for sure someone at SpaceX actually needs to design the way astronauts use the controls, and when they do, I implore them to consider the user experience - no matter how unusual the experience may be - of the astronauts who have to actually use the thing.