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The six computers that crashed on the International Space Station were made in Germany and operated by Russia, NBC's Tom Costello pointed out, but that hardly prevented ABC anchor Charles Gibson from using his headline: "Houston has a problem." ABC's Lisa Stark (no link) speculated that a newly installed solar panel may be incompatible with the computers. CBS treated the snafu as no big deal, mentioning it only in passing.
Playing what if, ABC's Mike von Fremd focused on the Space Station's oxygen and water supply, both of which are controled by the faulty computers. Back-up systems mean that they run out in 56 days. NBC's Costello concentrated on the computers' role in keep the station in a stable orbit so that the solar panels are pointed at the sun and the radio antennas can communicate with the ground. Without "proper orientation" it would become uninhabitable: seven astronauts would have to return on the Shuttle Atlantis; the other three, two cosmonauts and one astronaut, on the Russian Soyuz.
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