[Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ...

[Randy Williams]

Sent from my iPhone

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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