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Typing in words and numbers transmits an enormous amount of information very quickly,

This reminded me of NASA 'Mission Control' used for Apollo.

To eyes used to the movies or video games the consoles look bizarre: there are no graphs, no icons, no _pictures_. All the data came in, and went out, as numbers, or text.

They did it like that because to the engineers on the console the numbers could be grasped more quickly and meant more than a picture.



Communication using numbers instead of pictures is how engineers failed to stop mission control from allowing the Challenger to launch and crash with extremely out-of-spec frozen O-rings.


I have not read about Challenger in years, but I'll grant you the point.

One thing stands out in my mind: the guys on the console for Apollo were not the same guys on the console in 1986.

Was the problem the way the data was presented, the people interpreting the data, or an organizational problem?




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