XPost: rec.radio.shortwave   
   From: gsm@mendelson.com   
      
   > It is much more important to know exactly how long and how well your   
   > satellite is going to work than to hope to get longer by using a   
   > technology that might last longer, but will more probably die   
   > unexpectedly when struck by a cosmic ray burst.   
      
   Sometimes you can not predict how long a satellite will be used. A friend of   
   mine worked on a civilian satellite for a defense contractor and just before   
   the division was sold off, cleaned out any old documents and files they had   
   on it.   
      
   Since the satellite he had worked on was way past its expected life (but still   
   in use), the contracts had long expired, the work was not classified and a   
   new improved one was due to be launched in a few days, he was told   
   to dump it all.   
      
   A few days later, the booster exploded on the pad, and the replacement   
   was destroyed.   
      
   The sattelite was kept running for many years, although there were no   
   documents on what to do or how it was built.   
      
   Geoff.   
   --   
   Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM   
   My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count. :-(   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)