[Dialogue] NASA software developer moves on ...

Tim Wegner twegner at swbell.net
Sat Sep 29 09:21:10 PDT 2012


Yesterday I turned in my badges at the United Space Alliance.

My NASA career started when Susan and I were re-assigned from Egypt 
to Houston. The only thing I knew about the Space Shuttle was what I 
had read in Time magazines bought on the streets in Cairo. 

When we arrived at the Houston House, Susan stayed "in house" and I 
was assigned to work.  Larry Henschen helped me arrange an interview 
with McDonnell Douglas, a NASA contractor.  I had never programmed a 
computer and had no qualification other than a Master's degree in 
mathematics and an "all-but-thesis" not-quite-a-PhD. In retrospect, 
those were great credentials, since the state of computer programming 
when I was in college was using punch cards. When I was working 
programming NASA's first Unix computers, I remember thinking "I wish 
I had studied Unix in college" - then realizing that Unix didn't 
exist when I was in college! But the principles and laws of 
mathematics and physics I learned in the late 60's have stood up very 
well. My career has been spent in the abstract world of mathematical 
models of gravity, drag, solar pressure, and accelerations - space, 
the final frontier. Hard to beat that.

I missed the first four shuttle flights but arrived in time for 
STS-5. My first project was an analysis of the shuttle drag model. My 
supervisors weren't watching closely, so I learned FORTRAN on a 
UNISYS mainframe and implemented my results in a program called HOPE. 
(There was another program called LOVE, but not one called FAITH.) 
Shortly thereafter I was re-assigned as a programmer, and remained a 
software developer (and software project manager) for my whole 
career, which extended more then a year past the last Shuttle flight 
in July 2011. I ended up working for various NASA contractors for a 
bit over 30 years.

Shortly after I started at NASA, Larry Henschen and I were 
instrumental in helping Lynn Oden, another Houston House order 
member, in also getting a job. For a few years Lynn and I commutred 
together. Lynn retired a few years ago, having had a fine  career as 
a Shuttle Navigation Flight Controller.

Susan and I never "left" the Houston House; it melted away around us 
as the Order transitioned away from corporate living. Conna Wilkinson 
was the last one to leave when she moved back to Oklahoma. So Susan 
and I turned out the lights of the Houston House and got an 
apartment, and later bought a house. I am grateful today for all the 
experiences we had assigned to San Franscisco, San Jose, Melbourne, 
Adelaide, Bayad, and finally Houston. Susan and I arrived in Houston 
with no assets but no debts in our mid-thirties, and are now both 
retired. We still have no debts, but now we have a few assets. I 
amazed that that was possible!

I am still working with a small group of your colleagues keeping the 
wedgeblade.net glue connecting our far flung community alive.

Retirement is, of course, just another "assignment" to new 
challenges.

Tim Wegner


 



More information about the Dialogue mailing list