Topic: Penguins in spa-a-a-ce!

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

The six-person ISS has over 140 laptops on board, around 80 of which are working at any one time, along with a variety of internal networks for operations, crew support, and telemetry. These are used to manage on-board systems and handle some of the 50GB of data the ISS puts out and receives every week.

United Space Alliance (USA), the Earth-based contractor who maintains Ops LAN, has been using Windows XP laptops for the Ops LAN setup. However, with that operating system going into retirement – and prone to frequent crashes – laptops and network integration team leader Keith Chuvala decided it was time for a change.

Training didn't take more than a single session before the team was ready to set up the system, and Chuvala said the ease of deployment sold him on the scheme.

The use of Debian is going to warm the heart of NASA's non-human ISS crewmate, the R2 Robonaut, since it – he? – runs on Linux. The legless robot (not in the Bender sense) has been on the station since 2010 as a testbed for a future space-faring robot who can free astronauts from making lengthy trips outside the station.

Who says Penguins can't fly?

[TAnimaL]

Since it's technically free-fall, I feel a need to quote Toy Story,

"This isn't flying, it's falling with style!"

[Nemesis]

You fly to get there.