The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 7

The Rocket That Overflowed

1. 1

   In the fourth day of the sixth month, in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety and six, the Engineers of Europe set the fifth Ariane upon her pad at Kourou, beside the sea; and she bore in her belly four satellites called Cluster, which were sent to measure the winds of the Sun.

2. 2

   Now the fifth Ariane was mightier than the fourth, and swifter; and her horizontal velocity grew greater than any number the fourth had ever known.

3. 3

   But the Engineers said one to another: The inertial reference system of the fourth hath flown many times and hath not failed. Let us take it as it is, for that which hath worked shall work again. And they called this Reuse, and it was counted unto them as savings.

4. 4

   And in that code, written in the tongue of Ada, there was a line that took the horizontal bias, a number of sixty and four bits, and poured it into a vessel of sixteen bits, which holdeth no more than thirty and two thousand seven hundred threescore and seven.

   See also Genesis 31:6

5. 5

   And no guard was set upon that line; for the fathers had proven that on the path of the fourth Ariane the number could never grow so great, and they had left the guard off so that the processor should not be burdened above four fifths of its strength.

   See also Chronicles 40:11

6. 6

   Yet no man gave the path of the fifth Ariane unto the reference system, neither was it tried against a simulation of her flight; for the requirements said nothing of it, and where the requirements say nothing, no test is written.

7. 7

   Moreover the function wherein that line dwelt was the alignment, which served only before the rocket rose; and it ran on for some forty seconds after liftoff, because the fourth Ariane had needed it so, in case of a hold in the count. And the fifth Ariane needed it not at all.

   See also Job 3:12

8. 8

   And she rose, and the number grew, and at about the thirty and seventh second it overflowed its vessel; and the reference system cried Operand Error, and laid itself down.

9. 9

   Then the flight computer turned to the backup; but the backup had run the same code upon the same number, and had died the same death seventy and two milliseconds before. For two copies of one error are not redundancy; they are a chorus.

   See also Job 2:2

10. 10

    And the flight computer received the last words of the reference system, a pattern of diagnostic bits, and read them as though they were the attitude of the rocket; and it swung the nozzles to their full deflection, to correct a fall that was not happening.

    See also Tao 8:11 · Circuit 48:8

11. 11

    And the rocket turned broadside into the wind, and the wind tore at her, and she destroyed herself as she had been commanded; and the satellites came down in fire upon the swamps of Guiana, and the cost of it was some hundreds of millions.

    See also Circuit 48:8

12. 12

    And a board of inquiry was gathered under Jacques-Louis Lions, and they found that the software had done exactly what it was specified to do. And of all the words in the report, these were the most terrible.

13. 13

    Now the rest of the acts of Flight 501, and of the exception that was handled by shutting everything down, are they not written in the report of the Inquiry Board, which every Engineer citeth and few have read?

14. 14

    Therefore the Prophet said: Thy dead code is not dead. It sleepeth, and it waiteth for a larger number.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 7:1–14.