The computer may be incompetent in itself--that is, unable to do the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured.
As additional precautions, Kranz requested that a two-hundred-foot radio antenna (called a deep-space dish) in Australia be added to the global network tracking and communicating with the spacecraft, and that additional computers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland be what he called "cranked up" -- made ready for use. He also telephoned the Real Time Computer Complex on the ground floor of the Operations Wing to ask that an additional I.B.M. computer be brought onto the line.
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As additional precautions, Kranz requested that a two-hundred-foot radio antenna (called a deep-space dish) in Australia be added to the global network tracking and communicating with the spacecraft, and that additional computers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland be what he called "cranked up" -- made ready for use. He also telephoned the Real Time Computer Complex on the ground floor of the Operations Wing to ask that an additional I.B.M. computer be brought onto the line.
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