[HN Gopher] Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook...
___________________________________________________________________
Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't
figure out why
Author : mooreds
Score : 265 points
Date : 2026-04-02 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bsky.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (bsky.app)
| allears wrote:
| Why in the name of all that's holy would you use a Microsoft
| product on a mission like this? Just about the only thing you can
| trust about MS is that their software is buggy.
| mronetwo wrote:
| Because they have the power to insert themselves in places like
| these. It's a bigger problem. There are places in which
| companies with Microslop's level of quality have no business to
| be, but they're already there.
| shimman wrote:
| The fun thing about this, is it can change at anytime for any
| reason. All we need to do is get the right people in power, a
| good step toward this direction would be to actually support
| abolishing big tech (which many primary challengers have as a
| platform position).
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| USS Yorktown, the aegis missile carrier comes to mind for some
| reason.
|
| I think it was the same ship which shot down a passenger
| airliner.
| robin_reala wrote:
| "Guns don't kill people, Windows does"?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I believe that the use of Windows NT for Aegis control was
| fleet-wide, so that problem wasn't unique to the Yorktown.
| That just happened to be where it was discovered.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You are wrong on all points.
|
| The US shot down Iran Air 655 using the USS Vincennes, a
| Ticonderoga class ship. The shootdown was before Windows
| existed.
|
| It's controversial what to "blame", but I generally blame the
| captain, who defied all reason and caution to shoot down an
| aircraft that they never identified. He went gung ho and
| maybe got tunnel vision but he should have been outright
| court martialed. That should have been treated as "No, this
| is not acceptable behavior for someone of the rank of captain
| even if you hadn't shot down an airliner"
|
| Windows has zero relevance to that.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| From the comments:
|
| Andy Meyers @andymeyers10.bsky.social * 3h I said "launch
| window", not "Launch Windows"!
| nekusar wrote:
| Copilot (which one?!?) says "I'm sorry Dave, I cannot allow you
| to do that"
| bilekas wrote:
| There was a literal meme in spaceforce about this. Have we learnt
| nothing ?
|
| Microslop will now troll people outside of the Earth, a great
| achievement for them.
|
| So does this mean they now also have... 2 Copilots... ? Terrible
| joke.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| We can't even leave the planet without MS enshittifying our
| equipment. God, I really want out of this timeline
| alex1138 wrote:
| Clippy "It looks like you're trying to go to the Moon. Want any
| help with that?"
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Just imagine the aliens capture a probe and try to use Windows.
| What will they think of us?!
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| First they laugh.
|
| Then they wanna just cry when it brings down their whole
| starfleet with a virus that they have no immunity to ;)
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Don't worry, it will stop them at installation and demand
| internet access and creation of a Microsoft cloud account.
| jmacklin308 wrote:
| We migrated earlier this year and had a similar problem. Outlook
| (classic) works differently than the OWA version. They keep the
| classic version so people don't spontaneously throw a chair out a
| window. It's being phased out slowly.
| mvkel wrote:
| I'm betting in 15 years, people will still be using Outlook
| (classic). This is the culture.
| nekusar wrote:
| Its the fucking federal government's policy. Basically it
| amounts to "pay microsoft as a form of corporate welfare",
| "permit but not really allow linux", and "this is how it has
| always been done".
| gchamonlive wrote:
| And also because apparently "nobody has ever been fired for
| choosing Microsoft", which is something that should start
| happening more often if you ask me
| wang_li wrote:
| As long as Linux distros have such shit accessibility
| stories, MacOS and Windows being available should be a
| requirement for all systems in government.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The culture is correct, the new version of Outlook is hot
| garbage
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Which "new" Outlook? I think there's like 3 versions of
| Outlook currently on the market. The Classic Win32 one they
| want you to stop using, the new Lite variant bundled for
| free with Windows 11, and the new Full Spec one that comes
| with Office 365, both of which are built on web
| technologies IIRC.
| babypuncher wrote:
| That one that comes with office 365. My work PC got auto
| updated with it and I switched back to the Win32 version
| within an hour because it was buggy and a huge resource
| hog. It's just an email client and calendar, there's no
| need to keep reinventing the wheel, especially if you're
| just gonna make it worse.
|
| The macOS version still has all of them beat.
| bombcar wrote:
| The new version of outlook is our only hope of escaping the
| IE 6 email renderer in classic outlook, sadly.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| It depends on how badly Microsoft continues to fuck up
| Outlook (classic).
|
| I don't use Outlook for my personal email, but I've used it
| in various corporate engagements and not been wholly
| dissatisfied. Newer versions are slower, more bloated, and
| unstable (though add-ins-- especially the Teams add-in--
| contribute to that).
|
| The most egregious regression, for me, has been the "Advanced
| Find" functionality (which was wonderful in the 97 thru 2010
| versions) being changed-out for the god-awful search box
| within the Outlook window.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| We could have said that for publisher a few years back. Its
| death knell has been sounded and microsoft aren't even
| offering any way for people to properly view or print their
| publisher files, let alone edit them.
| yablak wrote:
| They also keep their own inboxes; emails downloaded to or sent
| from the old version are not visible on the new version.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _They keep the classic version so people don 't spontaneously
| throw a chair out a window._
|
| Considering this is a spacecraft, that explains everything.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I want to say something like "oh well, this is certainly a non-
| critical piece of software". Hopefully it's the convenient
| dashboard and there are other, more hardened consoles for
| fallback or something.
|
| But in all seriousness, and without glibness or sarcasm: I cannot
| comprehend how there is any "unexpected" software running on that
| spacecraft, regardless of operating system.
|
| EDIT*** For those who like me only watched the video and didn't
| read the thread: This is on a laptop that is non-critical, it is
| not a part of the spacecraft. Whew. Now I'm sad that one of the
| Linux distros didn't try to pitch themselves to the astronauts
| for a sponsorship... Would have been especially on brand for
| Pop_OS.
| dgellow wrote:
| And connected to the network!
| russdill wrote:
| They have a diverse range of devices, including iPhones
| bombcar wrote:
| It'd be fun to be a telco tech and realize that you've an
| attempted connection from an iPhone 50 miles up and receding
| fast.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Is it just me that finds it terrifying that theres any Windows
| bits on a spaceship?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >"Is it just me that finds it terrifying that theres any
| Windows bits on a spaceship?"
|
| SpaceX Crew Dragon console interfaces are entirely React apps
| ryandrake wrote:
| Everything is terrifying in computing these days, and
| bringing it to space rockets makes it even more terrifying.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| I think we need to mandate intentionally slower, sandboxed,
| and resource-constrained development
| environments/containers so developers are unable to abuse
| resources like they're "free" and in so using wasteful and
| improper algorithms to expand to fill the volume of the
| container (RAM, CPU, IOPS, storage capacity, and network
| bandwidth and latency) like an ideal gas. Lazy coding and
| excessive abstractions on top of VMs on top of more
| abstractions all the way down leads to shit.
| kotaKat wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41655299
|
| This comment makes it feel a lot safer, when you think about
| it.
|
| "Web browsers are historically known for crashing, but that's
| partly because they have to handle every page on the whole
| Internet. A static system with the same browser running a
| single website, heavily tested, may be reliable enough for
| our needs."
|
| When you've also built up the metal that you're running that
| React on, it's a lot warmer and cozier than having to trust
| the whole fat Windows 11 codebase on Artemis...
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| It's fine if you ignore supply chain attacks on npm
| packages.
| guzfip wrote:
| Blame the gaggle of idiots from that slop thread the other
| day.
|
| Now that the clowns are running the circus, I suspect digital
| goods will begin to rapidly decay soon.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Good! I've long said that Embedded UIs should be
| transitioning to being locally hosted webapps for a variety
| of reasons.
| siruwastaken wrote:
| What would that variety of reasons be? Genuinely asking.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Main reason is easy availability of developers. Can't
| swing a dead cat without hitting a web developer, whereas
| try finding one that even knows what LVGL is.
|
| Tons of existing libraries and frameworks. Essentially
| every UI problem you're likely to have is solved already,
| there are Known Good ways of dealing with most problems
| that you'll encounter.
|
| Consistent interface: the primary interaction element is
| the browser and HTML is the simplest thing there is to
| generate. You can write a basic webserver in an
| afternoon.
|
| And so on...
| cgh wrote:
| Clippy: "Hi, it looks like you're trying to go to the Moon"
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Ugh. Actually...
|
| > The thing about Space is that it's just so huge.
| Unbelievably so. And the real challenge? You have to make all
| your delta-V for orbital speed by pushing gas very fast. In
| one go.
| kaybe wrote:
| Oh ya I remember how some computer pulled a windows update over a
| satellite connection during a research flight (aircraft). That
| was super expensive, wow. Now Microsoft servers are banned at the
| outgoing point since you couldn't reliably stop it the computer
| itself and new teams with new computers come in.
| xnyan wrote:
| I'm not letting Microsoft off the hook here, but if you have an
| expensive metered connection and you're trusting clients
| (especially a modern personal computer of any operating system
| type)to play nicely with bandwidth, that's 100% on you.
| jubilanti wrote:
| That's a really sorry state of things, then. There's zero
| trust in software now, in the literal sense. How did it get
| that we live in a world where you can't trust a client to
| enforce its own documented behavior? How did it get to be the
| user's fault for not using OS and hardware level measures and
| not the software vendor's fault when the "Automatic updates"
| toggle is a no-op?
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| In an environment where bandwidth utilization costs money I
| think it's a good belt-and-suspenders approach, regardless
| of the expected behavior of the clients, to enforce policy
| at the choke point between expensive and not-expensive.
|
| (I think more networks should be built with default deny
| egress policies, personally. It would make data
| exfiltration more difficult, would make ML algorithms
| monitoring traffic flows have less "noise" to look thru,
| and would likely encourage some efficiency on the part of
| dependencies.)
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > How did it get that we live in a world where you can't
| trust a client to enforce its own documented behavior?
|
| My guess a combo of economic incentives and weak legal
| protections.
|
| I realize that answer applies to so many issues as to be
| almost not worth saving, but I think it's still true here.
| shimman wrote:
| MBAs/consultants hijacked the industry along with an influx
| of people that only consider leetcode to be sufficient for
| hiring. The past 10 years has been a major injunction of
| these people into big tech. The resulting mess is
| predictable, it'll get worse too which is why we need to
| break up these companies and allow better more efficient
| companies to take their place rather than letting them
| subsidize their failures with their monopolies.
| xnyan wrote:
| Software design is not really my wheelhouse so I can't
| comment meaningfully on that, but on the networking side I
| can very confidently say it was a poor architecture. You
| simply cannot assume that all of your clients are going to
| be both 1) non-malicious and 2) work exactly as you think
| they will.
|
| Link saturation would be one of the first things that would
| come to mind in this situation, and at these speeds QoS
| would be trivial even for cheap consumer hardware.
| rafterydj wrote:
| Well, on the software design side, there's plenty of
| scenarios where undocumented behavior crops up on
| unexpected network interruption. In the example above,
| Windows can even pre-download updates on metered
| connections during one time period, then install those
| updates during another. The customers really can't take
| the blame for that, IMO.
|
| I think overall society has rapidly deteriorated in
| software quality and it is mostly because of the
| devaluing of software design. No one expects quality from
| software, everyone "understands there are bugs", and some
| like to take advantage of that. And so the Overton window
| gets pushed in the direction of "broken forever good luck
| holding the bag if you use it" rather than the more
| realistic "occasionally needs to restart IFF you hit an
| issue and it takes less than <10 seconds and has minimal
| data loss".
| SR2Z wrote:
| Fair enough, but the fact is that until fairly recently
| most software wouldn't even pretend to care about
| conserving bandwidth. I certainly would never expect a
| desktop OS to do this well, even if MS loves their revenue-
| generating "bugs."
| relaxing wrote:
| The world where any unpatched system is a guaranteed
| botnet.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > since you couldn't reliably stop it the computer itself and
| new teams with new computers come in.
|
| Wifi connection settings in Windows have a "metered connection"
| setting, which disables automatically downloading updates. I
| don't recall exactly when this was introduced, but I had to use
| it for a year while I was stuck on satellite internet. You can
| even set data caps and such.
|
| Of course, it's always off by default, and I have no idea if
| there's any way to provision the connection via enterprise
| admin to default to on for a particular network (I would assume
| not) so you'd be stuck hoping everyone that comes in does the
| right thing.
| boxedemp wrote:
| It's a good setting. I've found it gets reset sometimes from
| Windows updates, so you must remain vigilant.
| rationalist wrote:
| computer virus
|
| noun A program which can covertly transmit
| itself between computers via networks (especially the Internet)
| or removable storage such as CDs, USB drives, floppy disks, etc.,
| often causing damage to systems and data. A software
| program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of
| causing great harm to files or other programs on the same
| computer.
| netsharc wrote:
| The astronaut's quote needs to be a billboard ad.. "I also see I
| have 2 instances of Outlook, and neither of those are working".
| simonh wrote:
| Houston, we have a problem!
| netsharc wrote:
| Thank you for contacting us, my name is James, I am a senior
| Microsoft application community troubleshooter...
| workfromspace wrote:
| Welcome to Houston support chatbot, powered by CoPilot. How
| may I help you?
| euroderf wrote:
| One is hacked by a Russian hacker group based in St.
| Petersburg, the other is hacked by a Chinese hacker group, and
| the third instance was actually BackOrifice but it couldn't get
| enough resources to run because of the other two.
| bombcar wrote:
| Your best hope is a fourth group hacks in (probably best
| Korea) and fixes one of the other two.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Bashing on MS products and on ReactJS (apparently used by spacex
| UIs) is a common pastime here and I'm guilty of it myself.
|
| But here we're talking about actual space rockets flying to space
| with humans in them.
|
| My expectation would be that something like
| https://tigerstyle.dev/ would be followed or the NASA rules
| linked from there https://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/P10.pdf
| babypuncher wrote:
| this is a crew laptop and not a mission critical computer at
| all.
| chasd00 wrote:
| since the astronauts are asking about it i'm guessing it
| wasn't snuck onboard. Sneaking stuff on to spacecraft to play
| with on the moon was a thing, i think one of the Apollo
| astronauts smuggled a golf club and balls to hit on the moon.
|
| (I realize this mission is to only orbit and not land on the
| moon)
| dgb23 wrote:
| That info puts things into perspective thanks.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| At a previous job I was a developer on a medical instrument
| that used Windows to run the UI.
|
| Before everyone gets all up in arms about it, Windows/Linux UI
| & database with external microcontrollers handling real-time
| control is a very common architectural choice for medical and
| industrial equipment. To the point where many Systems-on-Module
| (SoMs) come with a Linux-capable ARM processor and a separate,
| smaller processor for real-time, linked via shared memory.
|
| Anyway, a customer called to report a weird bug that we
| couldn't resolve. After remoting into the instrument, we
| discovered that one of the lab technicians had attempted to
| install Excel on it. At some point the install must have
| failed, but it left a .dll behind that was causing a conflict
| with something in our code and keeping the UI from starting
| properly.
|
| No, we did not learn anything from this incident...
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Isn't this what Embedded Windows was always for, like for use
| in medical equipment, ATMs, POS, PLC, oscilloscopes, etc?
| Basically stuff that's supposed to be fire-and-forget, run
| 24/7 and that the user shouldn't be able to tinker with.
|
| And also what group policies were for, that can disable the
| user from installing any software?
|
| Am I wrong to assume that the fuckup was on your end, for
| using the wrong tool and not configuring it properly?
| aksss wrote:
| Back in like early aughts I remember seeing an ATM in Rome
| that had evidently crashed and was sitting at a DOS prompt.
| I was much younger then, but I remember thinking it wasn't
| terribly surprising, but it was also a bit of a wizard of
| oz moment.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Memories now of what we were given at the hospital long
| ago: our obstetrics ward was using Philips OBTraceVue
| software. The original FDA-approved system required Philips
| to package the OS and hardware all together, so we were
| given a bunch of generic Compaq desktops to run their fetal
| heartrate monitoring on.
|
| The biggest annoying complaint was "we want to run our EHR
| software on it!" but because of the FDA requirements, we
| weren't allowed to install anything on the box. Yet somehow
| providing AV could be OK in some cases, and in other cases
| installing Citrix? And then we'd somehow find out someone
| managed to install the EHR client onto it anyways and it
| became a big old mess to have to have Philips come send a
| tech out of their own to reimage a PC we couldn't "legally"
| service.
|
| It was a big messy pain for a while back in the day. Was
| happy when we finally got to upgrade to the newer
| IntelliSpace software on our own PCs in the ward. (Also got
| to meet a support engineer that came out rocking an Agilent
| badge, so that was super cool on its own right of
| history...)
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > somehow providing AV could be OK in some cases, and in
| other cases installing Citrix?
|
| The only way this could possibly have passed FDA scrutiny
| would be if the original manufacturer had validated this
| particular system configuration and approved it.
|
| There's probably tons of stuff like this going on all
| over the place, but it manages to say under the radar, so
| no one notices it. But with the FDA's increased scrutiny
| on cybersecurity it will eventually disappear.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > Am I wrong to assume that the fuckup was on your end, for
| using the wrong tool and not configuring it properly?
|
| Not at all. I agree that it should have been locked down
| and only privileged accounts should be allowed software
| update. But the system auto-booted into an Administrator
| account so it really wasn't a surprise that eventually
| someone would do something stupid.
|
| I will say that this was for Windows NT retail, not Windows
| NT Embedded. At that point, getting an NT Embedded license
| practically required sacrificing your firstborn child. It
| was only when Microsoft got to Win XP Embedded that the
| license didn't look like it was written by a team of
| lawyers who already knew that they were perpetually in
| Hell.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> But the system auto-booted into an Administrator
| account_
|
| Sounds like a major NT configuration mistake.
| bregma wrote:
| That wasn't a Therac-25 by any chance?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Sorry. Couple decades too late.
| nasretdinov wrote:
| The poor technicians having to RDP with (what I imagine must be)
| a horrible latency. Although still might be better than some
| corporate environments lol
| pinum wrote:
| At its current distance, best case RTT would be about 420ms
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| That wouldn't be terrible to use. I feel like I've done worse
| supporting in-cab computers on fleet vehicles across 3G
| cellular.
|
| Keyboard shortcuts and "caching" the state of the remote
| client in your mind are the keys to doing that work.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Yup. 57kbps transatlantic modem connection to a remote
| desktop in some country with poor telephone connectivity
| was probably even worse. Never want to have to do that
| again!
| Thlom wrote:
| Low bandwidth is a bigger problem than high latency. If it
| takes half a second or even a second for your clicks to
| register it's not a big deal, you learn to work around it.
| But if the bandwidth is so low that it takes 5-10 seconds
| just to write the screen it really sucks.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I don't know if this craft has it, but they've been
| announcing all over that we'll get 4K over a 260mbps link
| from the moon, so that shouldn't be a problem
| icehawk wrote:
| At the time they were ~57,000km out and I calculated it was at
| least 380ms RTT to the ground receiver, so bad but not
| _unusable_.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _The poor technicians having to RDP with (what I imagine must
| be) a horrible latency._
|
| Once or twice a month, I have to RDP (now "Microsoft Windows
| App!") into a Windows XP machine on the other side of the
| continent through a jump box and a dialup connection.
|
| Latency is bad, but not as terrible as you might think. The
| worst part is moving files between localhost and remote.
| londons_explore wrote:
| RDP in the windows XP days supported all kinds of tricks to
| work with low bandwidths like doing rendering on the client
| not the server.
|
| I think most of those tricks have been disabled in modern
| windows for better security (you don't want some guest user
| able to feed your not-so-robust awfully complex rendering
| code some malicious inputs...)
| rmrfchik wrote:
| I didn't expect they are running Windows up there. Shouldn't be
| specialized and curated ... smthing else?
| liendolucas wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| 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.
| mmooss wrote:
| Laptops have built-in battery backup lasting hours.
| krisoft wrote:
| > 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.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Everyone likes to point and laugh, sure, I'm getting a chuckle as
| well.
|
| However, on more practical level, what are other options?
| Outlook, the desktop application works really well with local
| copies, is pretty low bandwidth and very familiar to end users.
|
| IMAP with Thunderbird is probably only other option that would
| satisfy the requirements.
|
| EDIT: Yes they need to get email in space. It's easy way to send
| documents back and forth.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I don't know why people are surprised by this. Using suitable
| off-the-shelf solutions for non-mission-critical purposes seems
| like a very reasonable thing to do.
|
| I'm recalling this from my memory of "The Space Above Us"
| podcast: There were various bespoke teleprinters sent up on
| early shuttle flights that had exciting failure modes (if I
| remember correctly one of them started smoking) and in at least
| a couple of cases they had to stow the new hardware and pull
| out the old backup hardware because the new stuff didn't work.
| cj wrote:
| Related thread from 2023 about the US Navy using Xbox 360
| controllers instead of custom built hardware.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408604
| bombcar wrote:
| Xbox 360 controller: Good times! US Navy approved.
|
| Madcatz controller: Bad times! OceanGate approved.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Having had the unfortunate experience of using MadCatz
| controllers, I would doubt the sanity of anyone that
| selected one
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I'm surprised they went with outlook rather than something
| like thunderbird. And I'm surprised they are burning power on
| an os that can run outlook.
| bombcar wrote:
| A Macbook Neo can run outlook just fine and pulls what, 20
| watts?
| mrweasel wrote:
| > Yes they need to get email in space. It's easy way to send
| documents back and forth.
|
| To me that's probably much more interesting. We assume they
| have all this fancy NASA tech, probably some special
| communication protocols, but nope, email is fine. Still not
| sure why they'd use Outlook, but I guess it's easier than
| retraining astronauts on Alpine or Mutt.
|
| How long did the US military rely on mIRC... decades, maybe
| they still do?
| stackskipton wrote:
| US Military still uses IRC/mIRC for similar reasons. Easy to
| self host and it's low bandwidth.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I'd ask the opposite question. Why would they _not_ use
| Outlook and instead use something like Alpine or Mutt? This
| is 2026, you know.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Is this incident not reason enough? Astronauts in space are
| needing remote support to debug it, and taking up priceless
| mission time.
| hatthew wrote:
| Sure, but bespoke software isn't necessarily going to be
| more reliable.
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-
| should-...
|
| > The idea that new code is better than old is patently
| absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots
| of bugs have been found, and they've been fixed.
| SamBam wrote:
| Alpine and Mutt are about 20 and 30 years old,
| respectively.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| This quote is completely and totally irrelevant. Nobody
| is saying they should code a new Outlook. If they did
| code something, it would be significantly smaller in
| scope and rigorously tested like spacebound programs in
| the past were. "New space-engineering-grade code created
| with actual engineering practices" is _absolutely_ going
| to be more reliable than "old bloated commercial
| shitware". But I guess software engineering is a lost
| art, so it can't be helped.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| It's also going to take a hell of a lot longer and cost
| more than buying an Outlook license. If I was lead on
| that project, you'd have an uphill battle trying to
| convince me that spending $100k+ on an email solution
| unless you can point to specific, serious deficiencies in
| the existing off the shelf solutions.
|
| Software Engineering is far from a lost art: part of the
| practice is intelligently making cost-benefit decisions.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| The current solution is literally causing problems in
| space. Space-grade engineering is expensive, but having
| things go wrong on your already very expensive mission is
| even more expensive.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| And that problem would go away with a 30 year-old
| solution?
| leptons wrote:
| I quit Outlook and went to Thunderbird when I upgraded my CPU
| and Microsoft told me I had to _re-purchase_ Outlook when I had
| paid for a "lifetime license". That was the last straw for me.
| I installed Linux and Thunderbird and have not looked back at
| Windows.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Obligatory Linux comment when speaking about Microsoft,
| windows or anything related.
|
| I don't have Linux but you guys make it hard to like it.
| bombcar wrote:
| I run Outlook in Wine or on the Web on Linux in a VM on Mac
| and make everyone mad.
| leptons wrote:
| I was on Windows for 30 years. I advocated for it and even
| got a few CTOs to switch from MacOS to Windows because they
| saw Windows was actually more capable than Apple propaganda
| would have you believe.
|
| I'm not really sure how you figure that my comment makes
| Linux hard to like.
|
| I simply don't like the direction Microsoft is headed in,
| and haven't for some time. Many people don't like it.
| Microsoft recently may have had a realization as a company
| and they might change their current direction, but I still
| doubt I'll go back. _They expected me to pay twice for
| software that I paid a "lifetime license" for_, only
| because I upgraded the CPU in my computer. If you think
| that somehow makes Linux look bad, then I don't know man...
|
| I run my email inside a virtual machine, so it was easy for
| me to switch over from Windows/Outlook to
| Linux/Thunderbird. I certainly don't expect everyone to
| switch.
| acdha wrote:
| Yeah, the only other option I'd consider for this would be
| Apple Mail on an iPad for the same reason that it works well
| offline or with low bandwidth networks. There's a QA issue here
| but the logic is quite reasonable.
| tempaccount5050 wrote:
| Apple Mail does not play nicely with Outlook/Exchange/M365
| accounts. Everywhere I've worked had said "You can use Apple
| Mail if you want, but IT won't be supporting it. Outlook app
| only." Always issues with syncing mail or contacts.
| somat wrote:
| Email(smtp) is not a bad choice for messaging in space(or
| anywhere really) it is a well understood robust protocol
| designed in a time when all networks were slow and
| intermittent. Exactly what you need in space.
|
| IMAP probably not so much, It depends too much on having a good
| network. unless the imap server is on the spaceship(heh,
| spaceSHIP, that is an optimistic term, but it is all we have,
| so going with it), I would not expect it to work all that well.
|
| I am not very familiar with outlooks game, Historically my beef
| with with it and thunderbird was their local data store, I mean
| it was not strictly speaking bad, but I was like "we have this
| great Maildir spec, why are you using this propriety database
| that is prone to corruption, even if you don't like Maildir
| million files approach at least use sqlite"
| mememememememo wrote:
| Spacecraft? Shuttle?
| sombragris wrote:
| > However, on more practical level, what are other options?
| Outlook, the desktop application works really well with local
| copies, is pretty low bandwidth and very familiar to end users.
|
| Claws-mail (https://claws-mail.org) has a good working Windows
| version. Native desktop app, lightweight, extremely fast, able
| to handle multigigabyte inboxes for breakfast. The only
| drawback for some would be that it does not compose (although
| it can display them just fine) HTML mail, only text-only mail.
| This is an architectural decision.
| jayofdoom wrote:
| I used this for a while. It doesn't display HTML emails just
| fine. It only supports a subset of stuff which -- as a geek
| is awesome because it protects me -- but would be hideous to
| give to a normal user. Literally less than half of my emails
| were readable.
| sombragris wrote:
| Are you sure? You used the the Fancy HTML Viewer plugin,
| which uses WebkitGTK2? I never had any problems with HTML
| Mail rendering in Claws. Your experience must be clearly
| peculiar to yourself.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Hopefully they are not getting exquisitely crafted
| newsletters in space.
| mememememememo wrote:
| Yeah that is the sad thing. Fewer desktop options these days.
| And CLI client is OK. Actually for an astronaut probably OK as
| they are used to learning systems. They'd appreciate
| reliability.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You'd want fetchmail with some local server.
|
| And if you are going with some local server, the
| Exchange/Outlook family is just the worst possible option.
| Those people already have enough stuff to maintain up there,
| they don't need something that require in-house expert admins.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| I did think 'Thunderbird' would be a more appropriate (named)
| use on a rocket :-)
| syntaxpr wrote:
| Neither outlook nor thunderbird. Best option would be some web
| browser based email + local web server (on board)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Best option would be some web browser based email_
|
| If the computer has a browser, yes. Otherwise, that sounds
| like a lot of unnecessary moving parts.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Outlook, the desktop application works really well with local
| copies
|
| With local cache for an Exchange server, or with purely local
| mail (i.e., using .pst files). The latter is mediocre IME.
| Outlook is an Exchange client; other uses are not in its
| wheelhouse.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I'd have just set up a backup mail client if someone insisted
| on Outlook. These sorts of issues are very common, and having a
| backup is the textbook solution if something might go wrong.
| autoexec wrote:
| Email is a pretty good way to send short text messages, but
| it's not great at sending files. The basic protocols are pretty
| simple and we've got a lot of experience using them. I can see
| the appeal of email.
|
| There's no way that outlook is the best tool for the job
| though, and it's no surprise at all that they're having
| problems with it. It's a complete mess with insane amounts of
| overhead and bloat if all you want to do is send text. Even the
| message headers it sends/mangles are trash. It's a pain to work
| with on the end user side too. I can't imagine that they
| couldn't have written a basic email client that would do the
| job better with far fewer problems/resources or used/built off
| of any number of decades old open source projects.
| golfer wrote:
| Why on God's green earth is Windows running on the Artemis
| spaceship?
| maxerickson wrote:
| What should they use for email?
| buildbot wrote:
| Alpine & Linux?
| maxerickson wrote:
| Are you running that on a flight system or on an additional
| computer where it would be fine to run Windows?
| buildbot wrote:
| The entire point is to avoid an OS like windows; and an
| email client like Outlook?
| maxerickson wrote:
| Yeah I get the point, I'm saying it's not really a good
| point, running Windows and Outlook on a secondary system
| is fine. Forcing the astronauts to learn to use some
| other system would be a waste of time and probably worse
| than whatever it is you see as the problem.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Most probably it can't connect to the server without
| running IT-mandated security software that runs only on
| Windows
| HoldOnAMinute wrote:
| Literally anything else. In 1992 we did email on the command
| line with green screen terminals
| forinti wrote:
| Pine
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| I am still using mutt.
| stockresearcher wrote:
| Huh, back in the 2001/2002 timeframe I worked at an old
| company that gave everyone a Windows laptop but us
| engineers also had UNIX accounts on the server cluster,
| which we logged into for dev work.
|
| Our company was hit with one of the worms (don't remember
| which). Thousands of emails constantly coming in and
| everyone scrambling to delete them - except people like me,
| who were on vacation. I returned to an inbox that instantly
| crashed Outlook. IT was trying to find a solution. But I
| logged into the UNIX cluster, opened Pine, and deleted all
| the crap, page by page. When I got most of it done, Outlook
| started working again.
|
| IT was shocked but then told everyone else to go do what I
| did, eliminating their need to do any work. So I guess you
| win some and you lose some..
| forinti wrote:
| Couldn't you delete or filter /var/spool/mail?
| creaturemachine wrote:
| ILOVEYOU was in 2000 and behaved that way. I remember we
| just shut off our Exchange servers until there was a fix.
| Email was still new enough that the world didn't implode.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Why do they "need" email access in the first place?! What the
| actual fuck.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Why the poverty mindset? If we are gonna joy ride around
| the moon we should at least do it in style.
| ashton314 wrote:
| The poverty mindset is that you still need to check your
| mail while riding around the moon. Style would be no
| email at all.
| shoxidizer wrote:
| They're officers and researchers strapped into their seats
| for 10 days, what could they be doing that doesn't involve
| email
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Research with the data they've collected so far?
|
| This hurts my brain so very much, the idea that email is
| necessary in outer space -- I just threw up in my mouth a
| little.
| saltcured wrote:
| Traditionally, officers would probably be working on
| their powerpoint slide decks.
|
| I wonder if they've checked for any rogue sharepoint
| instances yet...
| workfromspace wrote:
| Play minesweeper or solitaire...
| darknavi wrote:
| Corresponding with family members? What do you want them to
| use, Teams?
| blinding-streak wrote:
| Is this a serious question
| ashton314 wrote:
| They're not on God's green earth anymore, now are they?
| layer8 wrote:
| It's also blue, not green.
| golfer wrote:
| touche!
| ChoGGi wrote:
| Because Microsoft is an American company, and Linux is some
| kind of a communist daycare center.
| kube-system wrote:
| Because we're talking about an off-the-shelf laptop here, not a
| flight computer.
| pessimizer wrote:
| British nuclear subs were running Windows XP until at least
| 2017. It's easy to google, but the best article about it is
| _No, Trident doesn 't run on windows XP_
| (https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/no-trident-doesnt-run-
| window...), which ironically makes it very clear that Trident
| subs were running on Windows XP and had no plans to replace it.
|
| Most UK government excuse: "The programme undertaken by the
| Royal Navy and BAE Systems to equip the fleet with a Windows-
| based command system was completed in just 18 days."
|
| Translated: "You couldn't do better in 18 days, so you don't
| have a right to worry or criticize. Also, don't ask why this
| was pushed off until the last 18 days of the project."
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| I don't understand the title.
|
| It doesn't seem like they are trying to figure out why two copies
| of outlook are installed, they're trying to figure out why
| neither is giving them access to their email.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| People opening the "wrong" Outlook has been the norm for the
| last couple of years. Between "Outlook (classic)", "new"
| Outlook (rolled out with Office 365 clients), and "Outlook"
| (rolled out with Windows 11) it's been a shit show for a while
| now.
| Chihuahua0633 wrote:
| Did they consider scrapping the humans, and just installing co-
| pilot? heh .. heh.. /s
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| This talk about off-the-shelf hardware in space makes me wonder,
| given the clear line of sight, if it would be possible to detect
| their Wi-Fi access points' beacons from Earth. I'm not a "radio
| guy" and don't know if this would be impossible, simply on the
| basis of physics, due to the presumably low radiated power from
| the APs and the limitations of the size of typical antennas on
| the ground. (Obviously it's possible with the right equipment. We
| can communicate with the Voyager probes, but that's not with a
| "can-tenna" and an off-the-shelf Wi-Fi card...)
|
| Edit: Anybody know how difficult it would be to keep an antenna
| pointed at them? I have no intuition for how fast their transit
| would be. I assume, since an orbit is around 90 minutes, pretty
| damned fast.
|
| Edit 2: Some search-engining and back-of-the-envelope not-very-
| good-at-trig math says the longest possible transit would be
| about 5 minutes, moving though about 40 degrees of arc / minute.
| I'm probably completely talking out my ass, though.
|
| It feels like it would be do-able to keep a directional antenna
| trained on a target moving at that speed.
| b3orn wrote:
| Probably not possible. Their Wi-Fi access point is inside the
| capsule, the capsule is made from metal and probably shielding
| the signal somewhat. Maybe even quite a lot if it's intended to
| provide some radiation shielding. Also it's low power as it
| only needs to work inside the capsule, at the given distances
| signal attenuation will make it almost impossible to pick up
| anything.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| The correct answer is far too often the most boring answer.
|
| But yeah, this is basically it. We _could_ detect the signal,
| but they simply aren 't emitting a signal in the right
| direction for us to detect.
| mrintegrity wrote:
| Taking bets that the access point is called "Free Airport WIFI"
|
| https://www.npr.org/2010/10/09/130451369/the-zombie-network-...
| johann8384 wrote:
| We can keep our amateur radio antennas pointed at the ISS for
| their entire pass. This would be harder but feels doable. We
| have directional wifi antennas on AZ/EL rotators to track
| drones and extend their range.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| Ham radio enthusiasts might be able to help you out here.
|
| Hams already talk to the ISS on the 144-148 MHz band (which is
| close to the FM radio in your car). They have about a 15 minute
| window to talk to the ISS. They have a 90 minute orbit, too, so
| I would bet similar window to talk as Artemis II.
|
| The ISS is much closer to the earth than Artemis. Quick google
| tells me the Artemis is 184 times the distance as the ISS
| (dang!), bit inside the Van Allen belt. Our atmosphere is
| transparent to 2.4 Ghz, so there probably won't be too much
| attenuation. You would need to account for scattering of the
| signal - maybe use a yagi directional antenna?
|
| In conclusion: I bet you could interfere with their wifi, but
| might not be able to hear their signal
| zephen wrote:
| > I bet you could interfere with their wifi
|
| Seems unlikely. Even at perigee, a long boom YAGI 20 degree
| spread would be ca. 40 km wide. Mind you, the signal would
| still be 5 million times stronger than when Artemis II is
| close to the moon.
| cocodill wrote:
| Maybe for emails and calendars, wouldn't want them to arrive and
| miss the appointment.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Coordinating time-zone issues between remote meeting
| participants on a single celestial body is complex enough.
| >smile<
| workfromspace wrote:
| That gives me so many questions: Should there be a non-Earth
| timezone? How do you define a "day" in space? Is there a day
| light saving in space?
|
| At least they are not travelling near the speed of light.
| That's a whole different can of worms.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| At least the proposal let's time-zones go away, since "day"
| is completely artificial:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_on_the_Moon#Coord
| i...
| dminik wrote:
| Well, I wasn't that worried for the astronauts before, but now
| that I know they're running windows, I'm not so sure.
| ashton314 wrote:
| Please imagine the luxury of being SO FAR AWAY from all the crap
| happening on our planet right now, only to be spoiled by some
| lousy marketing emails from Microslop hawking their latest
| Copilot incursion.
| FerretFred wrote:
| Someone, somewhere has an unwatched phone waiting for an
| authorisation code response...
| AmVess wrote:
| Running Windows in outer space takes some pretty big balls. Gives
| me a cold sweat just thinking about it.
| lateforwork wrote:
| What should they be using instead? These astronauts are not
| Linux hackers.
| relaxing wrote:
| These astronauts are trained to use the system NASA puts them
| in.
| kube-system wrote:
| And ultimately they have a lot more important things to be
| doing then learning a different email client than the one
| they use at their desk on earth. This is an email client on
| a laptop, not a navigation system.
| ano-ther wrote:
| This is the modern version of the slave reminding the Roman
| emperor that he is mortal:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4pywzk/did_r...
| lwansbrough wrote:
| May need triple redundancy for MS Outlook for the next mission.
| AIorNot wrote:
| guys former NASA Mission Control Web Tool Team and OCA here
| (Orbital Comms Adapter office which was a backroom position)
|
| Crews have been using thinkpad laptops (personal laptops since
| the 2005) on the ISS and Shuttle. Artemis is likely an extension
| of this
|
| Laptops go through a long space hardening and verification
| process. Windows and Outlook is the result of that
|
| We used to do "Mail Syncs" which taking the outlook file and
| pushing it up to the crews laptop doing a comm window via TDRSS
| network -that how astronauts got their email
|
| is this high tech - no -does it work and been done for years yes.
| workfromspace wrote:
| > guys former NASA Mission Control Web Tool Team and OCA here
|
| Wow, very cool and lot's of respect!
|
| But... why not use linux, unix, custom OS, iPad, Android,
| Nintendo SNES, Atari, Commodore 64... anything BUT Microsoft?
|
| (Seriously though, why not Linux? I'd really appreciate if you
| could answer, thank you! )
| AIorNot wrote:
| Well as to why they were chosen back in the STS (shuttle) era
| (before my time) see a good history on the decision here:
| https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27043.0
|
| 1. In the space program decisions are made years before and
| changes are very difficult owing to a myriad of reasons from
| procedures to paperwork, eg there was a whole mirror lab
| setup on the ground To support them etc
|
| 2. Astronauts/Aerospace operationally often come from defense
| world - they are used to windows - see DoD -that battle was
| fought in the 80s/90s
|
| 3. Once something is a part of the space program it takes on
| a life of its own/ we had an IIS webserver onboard the ISS
| for example and also apache tomcat - we (myself wrote
| software for both) using .NET and Java
|
| 4. Training and operational software and docs were all MS
| Office variety for years (were talking from floppy disk era
| here)
|
| 5. Lot of other linux/unix based systems too this is is just
| crew support laptops - not considered mission critical
| workfromspace wrote:
| OMG, this almost became real:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zpCOYkdvTQ
|
| ("Fuck Microsoft" scene from the Netflix TV Series: Space Force)
| frizlab wrote:
| Unless I'm mistaken Space Force is a netflix series.
| workfromspace wrote:
| Oh, apparently you are right! Thanks for the correction.
| tempodox wrote:
| Wasn't it Bill Gates' dream that every coffee machine should run
| Windows? I guess he's got his wish. Also, redundancy: Imagine
| going into space and then have no email! Can't let that happen.
| londons_explore wrote:
| There are probably more running copies of freeRTOS than windows
| in the world...
| mememememememo wrote:
| Enshittification has reached space. Woohoo! We did it. Just use
| the web version! Love to know how how the web version loads with
| a couple of seconds network latency.
| amai wrote:
| Every car has more reliable software onboard.
| varjag wrote:
| "Houston, we've got two problems"
| xg15 wrote:
| Moon landing 1969: 4 KB RAM for the guidance computer is enough.
|
| Moon landing 2026: Two instances of MS Outlook sort of started
| themselves on the guidance computer and we have no idea why.
| ertian wrote:
| 1969: Every line of assembly code has been coded according to
| rigorous standards and vetted and reviewed by a panel of
| experts.
|
| 2026: lol we just realized there's a few million lines of extra
| code running but we can't figure out why
| testfrequency wrote:
| What could go wrong!
| doug_durham wrote:
| 1969: Every bit of every line of assembly manually woven into
| core rope memory by highly skilled technicians.
|
| 2026: We filled up our 2 TB flash. How do we get another?
| flysand7 wrote:
| 1969: Our toilets suck, better be miticulous and careful
| with waste
|
| 2026: Too much shit, we need to design new toilets
| undersuit wrote:
| The Apollo missions used a disposable bag you taped to
| your butt.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| ...and we managed to do this without AI!
| scorpionfeet wrote:
| Can you instead compare the mission critical code of Artemis
| instead of the email client?
|
| How many KB is the flight controller?
| whalesalad wrote:
| Genuinely shocking that the guidance computer would be running
| Windows at all.
|
| "... preparing for re-entry, adjusting azimuth, ... APPLY
| UPDATES AND REBOOT? APPLY UPDATES AND SHUT DOWN? QUEEN?
| UPDATES?"
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Microsoft said something about a Copilot...
| voxleone wrote:
| We went from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Power of Ten
| rules to 'have you tried restarting Microsoft Outlook?'
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Dev...
| mulmen wrote:
| Restart which one?!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _on the guidance computer_
|
| Source for this running on the GN&C (guidance and nav)
| computer? Isn't that built by the ESA?
| PTOB wrote:
| I'll bet someone's trying to run the New Outlook and classic
| Outlook at the same time.
| nickandbro wrote:
| Good thing they didn't bring copilot with them
| top_sigrid wrote:
| I wouldn't be too sure about that
| booleandilemma wrote:
| [delayed]
| nmstoker wrote:
| The two Outlook thing happens all the time at work.
|
| It's silly but never causes me issues, I just close the second
| one. Haven't ever figured out why it happens.
|
| Did the Artemis crew any side effects / problems tied to Outlook?
| amelius wrote:
| Redundancy is a thing in aerospace engineering.
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