The ancient shuttle computers aren't crtified for year end rollovers. Makes you realize how ancient the shuttle computers are. However, I'm glad NASA is cautious here. Lives are at stake.

Space shuttle Discovery was moved to the launch pad Thursday to await a launch that could be as early as Dec. 6 — an effort to avoid potential New Year's Eve computer glitches.

The worry is that shuttle computers aren't designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. NASA has never had a shuttle in space Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.

"We've just never had the computers up and going when we've transitioned from one year to another," said Discovery astronaut Joan Higginbotham. "We're not really sure how they're going to operate."

Starting Dec. 6, launch opportunities would be available as late as Dec. 17 or 18. With a 12-day mission, that would mean the shuttle is back on Earth before New Year's Eve.

However, NASA was quick to say that even if the shuttle crew finds itself still in space on Jan. 1, procedures could be devised to make a transition if necessary.

This reminds me of when I ran engineering for Telco Syetems in 1999. The CEO had funded a massive IT budget for Y2K testing and mitigation. Without going into detail, I provided a set of simple tests and solutions that saved lots of money. IT went ahead and spent most of the big bucks in futility anyway. Nothing went wrong as I'd guaranteed.