Roving Mars Quotes

“Worst of all was the flight software that handled data on board the rover, writing to and reading from the "flash" memory that was our equivalent of a computer's hard drive. The read and write commands too often just didn't work. The command we seemed to use the most was the one the Flight Software team called "SHUTDOWN_DAMMIT", which was like hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL on a personal computer, killing everything off and starting over.”
― Steve Squyres, Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet

“After a short discussion, the conclusion is to dust off the old SHUTDOWN_DAMMIT command that we used to use when things went to hell back during thermal vac. SHUTDOWN_DAMMIT should shut things down cold and should prevent any comm windows from opening up until the commanded wake-up time, which won’t be until tomorrow morning.”
― Steve Squyres, Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet

“So on every space project, there is a tension: the idealistic, impractical scientists against the stubborn, practical engineers. On the good projects, it’s a creative tension that draws out the strengths of both disciplines. On the really bad ones, it’s an acid that eats away at the collaboration until it’s rotten.”
― Steve Squyres, Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet