[Dialogue] NASA software developer moves on ...

[Wanda Holcombe]

Thanks for sharing your story Tim.  I have shared part of your story in many of my Peace with Justice training workshop that you told me year ago.
It was powerful to me then and still is.... 
"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.

Thank you for keeping us always looking "up" for more places to go....
Best wishes in your new assignment.... and now that Susan is retired too....come visit us in awesome Austin.
Grace & Peace
Wanda
Wanda Holcombe
wandah70 at gmail.com
512-619-3469
Email:  wandah70 at gmail.com



On Sep 29, 2012, at 11:21 AM, Tim Wegner <twegner at swbell.net> wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> 
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