Name: 阿波羅 11 號計算機錯誤背後的真實故事 | WSJ (The Real Story Behind the Apollo 11 Computer Error | WSJ)
Uploaded: 2025-04-30T23:06:29.000Z
Duration: 7 min 18 s

Houston, you're looking good for separation.

休斯頓，你看起來很適合分居。

On July 20, 1969, just moments after the Apollo 11 lunar module began its descent to the moon, a warning light flashed in the cockpit. 1202. 1202, alarm. 1202, standing by.

1969 年 7 月 20 日，就在阿波羅 11 號登月艙開始向月球下降的一瞬間，駕駛艙內閃爍著一盞警示燈。1202.1202，警報1202，待命

The spacecraft's computer had overloaded and rebooted, and no one knew why.

飛船的電腦超載重啟了，沒有人知道為什麼。

As Houston scrambled to find an answer, an anxious Neil Armstrong requested more information.

就在休斯頓努力尋找答案的時候，焦急的尼爾-阿姆斯特朗要求獲得更多資訊。

Give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.

給我們解讀一下 1202 程序警報。

Back on Earth, few were more nervous than a young computer programmer who had written the code for the lunar landing.

在地球上，很少有人比一位為登月編寫代碼的年輕計算機程序員更緊張。

We were landing on the moon the first time.

I wrote a good part of the computer code for the onboard computer that was active during the lunar landing phase of the Apollo mission.

在阿波羅登月任務的登月階段，我編寫了機載計算機的大部分代碼。

Eyles' career at NASA began as a happy accident.

埃爾斯在美國國家航空航天局的職業生涯始於一次意外。

This was the summer of 1966, and I'd just turned 23.

那是 1966 年的夏天，我剛滿 23 歲。

I was walking back home from a rather dispiriting interview, I think, at an insurance company.

我在一家保險公司參加完一次令人沮喪的面試後，正走在回家的路上。

At that point, I would have taken any job that anyone offered me.

那時，我願意接受任何人給我的任何工作。

When I happened by the MIT Instrumentation Lab and walked in cold and asked for a job.

當我偶然路過麻省理工學院儀器實驗室，毫無準備地走進去並詢問是否有工作機會時。

即便如此，埃爾斯還是得到了一個職位。

That day, he joined an army of over 400,000 scientists, engineers, and technicians working on the most ambitious engineering project in human history.

那天，他加入了由 40 多萬名科學家、工程師和技術人員組成的大軍，參與人類歷史上最雄心勃勃的工程項目。

No one knew how to land on the moon yet, just as no one knew how to program the computer.

沒有人知道如何登陸月球，就像沒有人知道如何給計算機編程一樣。

我們會想辦法解決這兩個問題。

Today, we're at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which has been given design responsibility for this guidance and navigation system, which will direct our Apollo spacecraft on the way to the moon, in fact.

今天，我們來到了麻省理工學院儀器實驗室，該實驗室負責設計這個制導和導航系統，事實上，它將引導我們的阿波羅飛船飛向月球。

In 1969, this was the most sophisticated machine ever created.

1969 年，這是有史以來最先進的機器。

Before Apollo, computers had mostly been vast behemoths, often taking up entire rooms or floors of buildings.

在阿波羅之前，計算機大多是龐大的龐然大物，常常佔據建築物的整個房間或樓層。

You say this computer is very much like land-based computers, and yet I think of them as occupying a whole base of equipment.

你說這臺計算機很像陸基計算機，但我認為它們佔據了整個設備基地。

You've got all this squeezed into a little box.

你把所有這些都擠在一個小盒子裡。

What was revolutionary about the Apollo computer was that it was the first use of integrated circuits, which allowed for a much smaller and faster machine.

阿波羅計算機的革命性之處在於，它首次使用了集成電路，從而使機器的體積更小、速度更快。

It was roughly six inches by a foot, about two feet, and weighed, I believe, about 70 pounds.

它大約六英寸乘一英尺，約兩英尺重，我想大約有 70 磅。

Despite these advancements, the Apollo computer's limitations presented formidable challenges.

儘管取得了這些進步，但 "阿波羅 "計算機的侷限性還是帶來了巨大的挑戰。

We were dealing with a computer that was very limited, both in terms of its memory capacity and its operation speed.

我們當時使用的計算機無論是內存容量還是運行速度都非常有限。

What this book in front of me is is a listing of the flight code for the lunar module for the Apollo 11 mission.

我面前的這本書列出了阿波羅 11 號任務登月艙的飛行代碼。

This represents the contents of 36,000 36K words of memory.

這相當於 36,000 個 36K 字內存的內容。

To give you an idea of just how small 36K of memory is, an average email message today is about 75K.

為了讓你瞭解 36K 內存有多小，今天的電子郵件平均約為 75K。

Ultimately, for flight, the information in a book like this would be woven into a type of memory called core rope that was super reliable.

最終，對於飛行來說，這樣一本書中的資訊會被編織成一種叫做核心繩索的記憶，這種記憶超級可靠。

The result of that was six modules, like the one in my hand.

結果產生了六個模塊，就像我手中的這個。

And these modules would be slid into slots in the back of the computer.

這些模塊將被滑入電腦背面的插槽中。

And that would be the code that was equivalent to plugging the CD-ROM into your early Mac.

這些代碼就相當於將 CD-ROM 插入早期的 Mac。

The code that Eyles and his colleagues wrote had to both do its job and also do so in as few characters as possible.

Eyles 和他的同事們編寫的代碼既要完成任務，又要用盡可能少的字元完成。

When you write a piece of code, you're writing something that needs to, in as few words as possible, convey an idea.

當你編寫一段代碼時，你需要用盡可能少的文字來表達一個想法。

But at the same time, it needs to fall trippingly off the tongue of the central processor.

但與此同時，它也需要從中央處理器的口中蹦出來。

You could call it a lapidary sort of art, in the sense that you were dealing with small things and trying to get them just right.

你可以說這是一種青金石藝術，因為你要處理的都是小東西，並努力把它們處理得恰到好處。

So what was happening during Apollo 11's landing when the computer was overloaded?

那麼，在阿波羅 11 號著陸時，計算機超載時發生了什麼？

The computer's display was flashing error codes, 1201 and 1202.

電腦顯示屏閃爍著錯誤代碼 1201 和 1202。

But the astronauts didn't know what those alarms meant.

但太空人並不知道這些警報意味著什麼。

And for 50 years, neither has much of the world.

50 年來，世界上許多地方也是如此。

Not even the programmers who designed it were sure just what was happening.

就連設計它的程序員也不清楚到底發生了什麼。

There are many new things that are happening in this flight.

這次飛行中出現了許多新情況。

There are big dangers involved, despite the best our technology can do.

儘管我們的技術已經做到了極致，但其中仍然存在著巨大的危險。

Right here, you see the 1201 and 1202 codes.

在這裡，你可以看到 1201 和 1202 編碼。

At the time, we were sort of holding our breath.

Is the spacecraft going to keep flying OK?

Or is it going to somehow go out of control?

They got a momentary alarm on their system.

As the spacecraft began its final descent to the moon, a terrified Iles came to the conclusion that the mission was doomed.

當飛船開始最後一次向月球下降時，驚恐萬分的艾爾斯得出結論：這次任務註定要失敗。

If it had been up to me, I probably would have recommended an abort.

如果由我來決定，我可能會建議流產。

But flight controllers in Houston had a better perspective.

但休斯頓的飛行控制員卻有更好的視角。

Soon after the alarm started, mission control realized that the computer was still running the critical guidance and navigation systems.

警報響起後不久，任務控制中心發現計算機仍在運行關鍵的制導和導航系統。

Eagle, Houston, you're go for landing, over.

老鷹號，休斯頓，準備降落，完畢。

Rather than abort, they made the courageous decision for Apollo to proceed.

他們沒有放棄，而是勇敢地決定讓阿波羅號繼續前進。

Neil Armstrong took over control of the craft.

尼爾-阿姆斯特朗接管了飛船的控制權。

And Apollo, of course, landed safely on the moon.

當然，阿波羅號也安全登陸月球。

There was no one calling and saying, you fools, what did you do to us?

沒有人打電話來說："你們這些傻瓜，你們對我們做了什麼？

It was up to us to figure out what had happened.

我們必須弄清楚到底發生了什麼。

The alarm issues were traced to an obscure condition in which a radar, accidentally turned on, flooded the computer with unnecessary data.

警報問題可追溯到一種不明顯的情況，即雷達意外打開，使計算機充斥著不必要的數據。

The alarms were saying, there's no more storage space.

警報器說，沒有更多的存儲空間了。

We're going to flush everything and sort of reconstruct it and do what you would call a restart.

我們要把所有東西都沖洗乾淨，然後進行重建，也就是所謂的重新啟動。

On the contrary, it had done exactly what it was supposed to do.

恰恰相反，它所做的正是它應該做的。

The issue was caused by human error in the hardware.

問題是由硬件中的人為錯誤造成的。

Someone had accidentally flipped a switch when it shouldn't have been flipped.

有人不小心打開了不該打開的開關。

It was determined that, in fact, the switches were set up in such a fashion that this weird condition could occur.

經確定，事實上，開關的設置方式導致了這種奇怪情況的發生。

艾爾斯則留在了美國國家航空航天局。

And his code was deployed successfully in every Apollo mission.

他的代碼在每次阿波羅任務中都成功部署。

What was developed was actually extremely advanced for the time.

實際上，所開發的產品在當時是非常先進的。

And in some ways, it's more advanced than some of what's being used today in real-time systems.

在某些方面，它比現在的一些實時系統更加先進。

Because the greater speed and greater memory of today's computers don't force you to be as compact as we had to.

因為現在的電腦速度更快、內存更大，不再像我們以前那樣需要那麼小巧。