They keep space station's computers humming

Photo by James Nielsen

The computers on the International Space Station are a maddeningly slow marvel of '80s technology, stitched together from components that speak completely different languages, but a lab in Clear Lake somehow keeps them running.
Boeing's "software verification facility" on Space Center Boulevard -- that's the one next to the giant swimming pool where NASA trains its astronauts -- maintains mock-ups of the computer systems used on the International Space Station. Every new component bound for the space station is tested there first.
Get the full story from the Houston Chronicle's Eric Berger.