By Simon Gorbaty ‘19, News Editor

During Morning Meeting on October 15th, NA Technology Director David Kapferer informed the school community that the Wi-Fi in the New Wing was down, and that the issue was being fixed. It was, but this unprecedented start to the week foreshadowed a more consequential technological failure the next day.

On the night of October 16th, between 9 and 10 P.M. EST, YouTube crashed around the world. Many NA students were likely too busy sifting through other websites (Sparknotes?) at that time to give this sudden failure of the largest video-sharing website much attention. But it happened, and it was the first crash of its kind.

In fact, YouTube itself seemed to have little idea about what was going on. They tweeted in the midst of the shutdown, “Thanks for your reports about YouTube, YouTube TV and YouTube Music access issues. We’re working on resolving this and will let you know once fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and will keep you updated.” No official statement regarding what exactly occurred has since been released to date.

Reactions varied from memes to 911 calls–likely due to the unusual nature of the crash.

YouTube streaming previously crashed during the World Cup this summer, and was briefly down for East Coast residents in 2017. But these issues were fixed much faster than the one on October 16th, and YouTube TV continued experiencing problems even after 10 p.m.

Earlier in the month, another piece of modern technology crashed, on the other side of the world.

On October 11th, a Russian Soyuz S-10 Rocket, launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, experienced a booster failure that brought the launch to an abrupt end. The mission was intended to transport astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to the International Space Station. The craft engaged in a “ballistic descent,” meaning the spacecraft fell at a sharper angle that resulted in greater gravitational forces on the crewmembers. The crew-members reported feeling weightlessness (a sign that the rocket was falling), and shortly after the vehicle carrying them successfully detached from the falling rocket.  Both crewmembers emerged from the subsequent emergency landing safely, and were quickly recovered by search-and-rescue teams 310 miles northeast from Baikonur. Hague has reported that upon their landing, Ovchinin began cracking jokes about “how short our flight was.”

Russia is investigating the incident. In recent years, the Russian space program has experienced numerous such mission failures, ranging from the explosion of a Proton-M rocket in 2013 to the incorrect placement of a satellite into orbit in 2017. But this is the first launch abort for Russia in thirty-five years. The failure is expected to put a strain on the current crewmembers occupying the ISS.

Such stories from this October encourage us to be mindful of our dependence on technology. We must understand that technology dominating our lives, whether rockets or the internet, is not flawless or immune to complications. We must always be prepared to face setbacks when technology crashes.