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I know there is a techie person who can answer my question. We know the space station has been having computer problems. I'm wondering if all the computers completely go down, whould the shuttle be able to seperate from the space station, or does it depend on the station computers along with their own to be able to do this. Does anyone know what I'm trying to say?....Maggie
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The space station and the shuttle are independent of one another as far as computer systems go. The space station is Russian and the shuttle is US though there must be some built in compatibilities. As well, manual overrides are generally available when automatic systems fail. If you are concerned that a stranded space station could glom onto the shuttle and not let go, I doubt it. 
BTW, nice to see you in Speakeasy again!
Angeline
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Once docked the station and shuttle(or any other craft) can be separated by manual effort. It is a problem if the computer does go out during docking as the nav and pinging required report real time status but again a a manual intervention is capable but it is a hard maneuver on its own. Understand the computers are antiques or certainly older stuff but more important they are harden to reduce "cosmic effects" but being old does have it own problems. Heck, the Ruskie computers are probably copies anyways. -----Willy
...intelligent people would not plan ahead for such eventualities. I would never in hell stake my life on my computer NOT going down. And if they did...well...I guess one might call that "cleaning up the gene pool".
The shuttle computers were designed in the late 60's, build in the 70's and finally used in the 80's or close to all that. I believe there are 5-6 computers on the shuttle that do most of the work. That many in order for one to replace or back-up any others. Space is a very unforgiving environment, little wiggle room.
tada -----Willy
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