I had earlier mentioned the reluctance of NASA to schedule a flyby of a planet during Thanksgiving or Christmas due to its desire to allow most of its employees the luxury of enjoying the holiday. Until 2007, NASA also eschewed scheduling any mission for the space shuttle which overlapped New Years Day. The reason for avoiding this particular holiday had nothing to do with the perceived drinking habits of NASA personnel; it instead revolved around the fact that the computers governing the shuttle flights had trouble coping with the rollover of the year.
Had I been an astronaut, I would have felt a little unease over the fact that my transportation to, survival within, and return from outer space depended on a computer operating system which could not be relied upon to resolve a problem as complicated as changing the calendar.
NASA finally cleared up this hiccup, as revealed by its website.
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| By NASA; edited by jjron (tilt corrected) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
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