Orion's Lesson for IT: Test Your Systems, Then Test Again (and Again)

When NASA's new spacecraft, Orion, made its maiden voyage last week, it completed its successful 4.5-hour trip running on a 12-year-old processor and a computer that's far from state-of-the-art.
So how did NASA's engineers make this old technology work for them in the rigors of space?
Testing. Testing. Testing.
"It was a very good flight," Matt Lemke, NASA's deputy manager for Orion's avionics, power and software team, said Tuesday. "It was as good as it could have gone.... The way we achiev