Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle (1986)

Re:Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle (... by robryk on Saturday February 08, 2014 @05:23PM (#7203064)

Gregg Easterbrook wrote the following about simulated shuttle landings:

> They've never flounced like a twig on the crazy rapids of "bias"--the bland physics term for unexplained variations in the earth's gravitational and magnetic fields.

I can't make heads or tails out of it -- I can't find any reference to such a phenomenon called "bias" and I don't see how gravitational field variations (I assume he means the ones caused by uneven density) could have any effect at their minuscule amplitude. Is this a result of some misunderstanding or am I missing something?

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Re:Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle (... by 001sky on Saturday February 08, 2014 @06:30PM (#7203372)

http://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/historical_declination/

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Re:Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle (... by robryk on Saturday February 08, 2014 @07:30PM (#7203587)

Thanks. I didn't know that the differences change in space in such weird fashion. I guess what was meant were spatial differences, not temporal ones and it now the part about magnetic field makes some sense to me.

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