In part one of this series I showed how NASA grew its mental model of an asteroid from when it was first detected thru to when a final plan was made to defuse the threat.
This part presents a similar situation except that the threat is actually part of NASA itself. Bonus points if you can predict how this is leading up to my theory on empathy.
In this example, one of NASA's satellites unexpectedly runs out of fuel and its orbit starts to decay. The NASA tracking system that normally track asteroids notices the change in the satellite's orbit and tag NASA's internal representation of the satellite with this information.
Like the last example, this causes a chain reaction of involvement by various NASA subsystems, each of which tags the satellite model with more data. Ultimately, they figure out a plan that involves nudging the satellite into a particular orbit that leads it into the ocean and out of harm's way.
The key difference between this example and the last is that the asteroid in the first example was external to NASA, whereas the satellite in this example was part of NASA itself.
In the next part of this series I'll compare these NASA scenarios with those that occur in a human mind.
Comments