NASA software developer moves on ...
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
Yay, Tim! Ken (also a former Houston House member) On 2012-09-29, at 12:21 PM, Tim Wegner 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 _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
Dear Tim, Thank you for your story, and welcome to the next phase of your journey of the spirit, your 'retirement'. Journey on, journey on, dear Susan and Tim. Grace is yours and peace Isobel Bishop. On 30/09/2012, at 2:21 AM, Tim Wegner 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
_______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
Sent from my iPhone On Sep 29, 2012, at 11:21 AM, "Tim Wegner" <twegner@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
_______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
Tim (and Susan), You have a wonderful journey, life and career-wise. Thanks for all what you do to keep us connected. Journey on! j'aime la vie -----Original Message----- From: Tim Wegner <twegner@swbell.net> To: oe <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 12:21 am Subject: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... 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 _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
Tim, your story is a story of how connected we all are! I'd forgotten about those of you at the Houston House and the connection with NASA! In 1988 I was one of 20 teachers selected to attend the first of NASA's Educational Workshops for Elementary School Teachers at KSC in Florida. We were there for the Roll Over of shuttle Discovery for its first mission after the Challenger disaster. It was a very emotional experience for the hundreds of workers who were there, and it was extremely exciting for us teachers. Barbara Morgan, the teacher who was the back-up to Christa, who died in the Challenger explosion, was with us for most of our time at KSC. She eventually became an astronaut and the first teacher in space a few years ago. The fall of 1988, I was amongst the educators invited to attend a special workshop for teachers in Southern California that coincided with the landing of the Discovery after it's first flight following the Challenger. That was an amazing experience. A few days ago on September 21st we had the fly over of the Endeavor piggybacked on its 747 on the way to Los Angeles. I missed seeeing it flying right over this area, but many of my friends saw it, and lots of pictures were posted of it flying over Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay. Enjoy your retirement! I'm glad to know that a colleague was involved with the space shuttle program! Ruth Landmann --
Abe Ulangca was part of a team at Singer-Link (in Binghamton, NY) who worked on the simulator to train astronauts for the space shuttle. His responsibility was NAV-COM - Navigation/Communication, and he travelled to NASA in Texas several times during the 1980s as part of this work. Janice ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Wegner" <twegner@swbell.net> To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 10:38 PM Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ...
Ruth wrote:
I'm glad to know that a colleague was involved with the space shuttle program!
There were at least three at NASA -
Larry Henscen (space station design) Lynn Oden (shuttle navigation flight controller) Tim Wegner (shuttle navigation software developer)
Tim _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
To colleagues related to NASA and its work, here's a "testimonial" that was in the Opinion column of the Saipan Tribune a week Tuesday. The usual caveat to the rest of the listserv: curious, welcome; not, see you at the next bend. The earthrise Armstrong
From the USS Philippine Sea, Astronaut Neil Armstrong of the US Navy, the first man to walk on the moon, had his cremated remains scattered to the four winds in the Atlantic Ocean a few days ago. It was not the personality of Armstrong, that made his final "over and out" call late July, that made us skip a heartbeat. It was the effect of the mission he undertook that got us on a particular journey. Thus, this testimonial.
I was still in my teens, pretending to be an old man, broadcasting a morning political and social commentary cum music over one of two the local commercial radios in a Cagayan town. The program was, "The love and life of old man Jaime" (ti ayat ken biag ni 'tang Jaime). Sometimes we subbed for the noon newscast and it was then that we learned of the assassination of the young JFK. We mention this because it was the young president that boldly declared his intent to send a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Armstrong made it on schedule. I was in Tar Heel country, in the Piedmont of North Carolina, when on a freezing Christmas in a house heated by burning coal in the basement, we watched photos from Apollo 8 three years before Armstrong's historic walk on Apollo 11. The blue orb in the sky rose to the shutter click of a camera hovering over the moon, taking an image usually seen on earth of the moon or the sun emerging up to the earth's horizon. In a twist on metaphor, a term and an iconic picture were born, the "earthrise", unarguably the most potent mythical symbol of the 20th century. There it was, this little planet with only the land and water boundaries visible to the eye, unmindful of the imaginary political delineations that humans have constructed through the centuries to separate parcels of territories into nations. There were just the continents and the water, exposing the reality that the separation of nations, areas, and regions are human constructs that can be deconstructed. Nations have taken lives of their own, imposed on territories for the sake of powerful vested interests. Suddenly, our Eureka occurred as we realized that the fragile ecosystem we were watching was not a made for TV illusion, but actually a "living" organism with humans acting as its brain. In 1968, that brain was already showing cancerous characteristics. I was in the United States in the middle of the civil rights crisis, a war on poverty, and waging a war in Vietnam that caused an otherwise competent president not to seek reelection. The Limits of Growth report from the Club of Rome was still four years away to notoriety, but the viciousness we were showing in dealing with the racial divide, and the devastation we were visiting on an impoverished country proud enough to say "Non" to their Gaelic colonizers and determined not to be under the imposition of a foreign rule again, was just unconscionable. It was then, in a feat of youthful idealism, and prophetic realism, that we chose the "earthrise" to be our home. A radical transformation occurred that took us from a peasant boy of the northern Luzon hinterlands, to becoming a glocal citizen, though we were still a decade away before we started using the portmanteau, a morpheme of "thinking globally, acting locally". The picture of the earthrise has since graced our living space, externally and internally. As part of my introduction, and the students are likewise asked to introduce themselves using the guide questions of what, when, where, who, how, and why, I begin by claiming the earth as my hometown, and there is no place in it where I am a stranger. In my glocal being, I have appropriated a native-ness to every piece and parcel of it, animate and inanimate. The mantra in our young adulthood still prevails: All the goods of the Earth belong to all the people. All the decisions of history belong to all the people. All the inventions of humanness belong to all the people. We might have ceased actively in the sloganeering part as the focus has been at the point where the rubber hits the road. Being a glocal citizen in a deeply rooted ethnocentric culture like China (along with most of the world) is a challenge and a half. In the process, our peripatetic pedagogy has taken us to the Hausa and Yoruba of Nigeria, the Hindu Om of Maharashtra, the Aleut of Alaska, the brothers and sisters in Rome, the Nippon and their Shinkanzen in the Land of the Rising Sun, the Metis of prairie Canada, the durian and rambutan of Malaysia and Indonesia, the Kimchee of Korea, the proa of Micronesia and Polynesia, and all but one State in the Union. Now, we sup on the mein chow and gao zi of Dong Bei among people who call themselves the creatures of the middle, Zhongguoren. It has been a passage of spectacular proportions and deep currents in the incursion, emptying the pocket book in the excursion but enriching to no end the dB of the experience. Still, the expedition ain't over yet, and thanks to Neil Armstrong ("one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind") and the Apollo mission crew, this country boy of the Malay race is managing to join the great leap forward of humankind. j'aime la vie -----Original Message----- From: Tim Wegner <twegner@swbell.net> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 10:39 am Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... Ruth wrote:
I'm glad to know that a colleague was involved with the space shuttle program!
There were at least three at NASA - Larry Henscen (space station design) Lynn Oden (shuttle navigation flight controller) Tim Wegner (shuttle navigation software developer) Tim _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
Jaime, As always, great article! Thank you for sharing. Elsa Batica Minneapolis, MN ________________________________ From: Jaime R Vergara <svesjaime@aol.com> To: oe@lists.wedgeblade.net Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 10:55 PM Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... To colleagues related to NASA and its work, here's a "testimonial" that was in the Opinion column of the Saipan Tribune a week Tuesday. The usual caveat to the rest of the listserv: curious, welcome; not, see you at the next bend. The earthrise Armstrong From the USS Philippine Sea, Astronaut Neil Armstrong of the US Navy, the first man to walk on the moon, had his cremated remains scattered to the four winds in the Atlantic Ocean a few days ago. It was not the personality of Armstrong, that made his final "over and out" call late July, that made us skip a heartbeat. It was the effect of the mission he undertook that got us on a particular journey. Thus, this testimonial. I was still in my teens, pretending to be an old man, broadcasting a morning political and social commentary cum music over one of two the local commercial radios in a Cagayan town. The program was, "The love and life of old man Jaime" (ti ayat ken biag ni 'tang Jaime). Sometimes we subbed for the noon newscast and it was then that we learned of the assassination of the young JFK. We mention this because it was the young president that boldly declared his intent to send a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Armstrong made it on schedule. I was in Tar Heel country, in the Piedmont of North Carolina, when on a freezing Christmas in a house heated by burning coal in the basement, we watched photos from Apollo 8 three years before Armstrong's historic walk on Apollo 11. The blue orb in the sky rose to the shutter click of a camera hovering over the moon, taking an image usually seen on earth of the moon or the sun emerging up to the earth's horizon. In a twist on metaphor, a term and an iconic picture were born, the "earthrise", unarguably the most potent mythical symbol of the 20th century. There it was, this little planet with only the land and water boundaries visible to the eye, unmindful of the imaginary political delineations that humans have constructed through the centuries to separate parcels of territories into nations. There were just the continents and the water, exposing the reality that the separation of nations, areas, and regions are human constructs that can be deconstructed. Nations have taken lives of their own, imposed on territories for the sake of powerful vested interests. Suddenly, our Eureka occurred as we realized that the fragile ecosystem we were watching was not a made for TV illusion, but actually a "living" organism with humans acting as its brain. In 1968, that brain was already showing cancerous characteristics. I was in the United States in the middle of the civil rights crisis, a war on poverty, and waging a war in Vietnam that caused an otherwise competent president not to seek reelection. The Limits of Growth report from the Club of Rome was still four years away to notoriety, but the viciousness we were showing in dealing with the racial divide, and the devastation we were visiting on an impoverished country proud enough to say "Non" to their Gaelic colonizers and determined not to be under the imposition of a foreign rule again, was just unconscionable. It was then, in a feat of youthful idealism, and prophetic realism, that we chose the "earthrise" to be our home. A radical transformation occurred that took us from a peasant boy of the northern Luzon hinterlands, to becoming a glocal citizen, though we were still a decade away before we started using the portmanteau, a morpheme of "thinking globally, acting locally". The picture of the earthrise has since graced our living space, externally and internally. As part of my introduction, and the students are likewise asked to introduce themselves using the guide questions of what, when, where, who, how, and why, I begin by claiming the earth as my hometown, and there is no place in it where I am a stranger. In my glocal being, I have appropriated a native-ness to every piece and parcel of it, animate and inanimate. The mantra in our young adulthood still prevails: All the goods of the Earth belong to all the people. All the decisions of history belong to all the people. All the inventions of humanness belong to all the people. We might have ceased actively in the sloganeering part as the focus has been at the point where the rubber hits the road. Being a glocal citizen in a deeply rooted ethnocentric culture like China (along with most of the world) is a challenge and a half. In the process, our peripatetic pedagogy has taken us to the Hausa and Yoruba of Nigeria, the Hindu Om of Maharashtra, the Aleut of Alaska, the brothers and sisters in Rome, the Nippon and their Shinkanzen in the Land of the Rising Sun, the Metis of prairie Canada, the durian and rambutan of Malaysia and Indonesia, the Kimchee of Korea, the proa of Micronesia and Polynesia, and all but one State in the Union. Now, we sup on the mein chow and gao zi of Dong Bei among people who call themselves the creatures of the middle, Zhongguoren. It has been a passage of spectacular proportions and deep currents in the incursion, emptying the pocket book in the excursion but enriching to no end the dB of the experience. Still, the expedition ain't over yet, and thanks to Neil Armstrong ("one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind") and the Apollo mission crew, this country boy of the Malay race is managing to join the great leap forward of humankind. j'aime la vie -----Original Message----- From: Tim Wegner <twegner@swbell.net> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 10:39 am Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... Ruth wrote: > I'm glad to know that a colleague was involved
with the space shuttle program! There were at least three at NASA - Larry Henscen (space station design) Lynn Oden (shuttle navigation flight controller) Tim Wegner (shuttle navigation software developer) Tim
OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
SAVE THE HOUR Dear Colleagues, As part of the pre-conference ICAI gathering in Nepal the 'Growing a New Sense of Leadership' theme group will be offering two conference calls. Oct 3rd at 9am Toronto/New York Time Jeanette Stanfield and Stacy K will introduce us to the revised book "The Courage to Lead". You can get your own digital copy of this edition by going to iUniverse. In one minute you can download a copy for $3.99. We will also be sending out several key paragraphs for our discussion on the Transestablishment style. Oct 8th at 9am Toronto/New York Time Rob Work will discuss with us the curriculum he is delivering at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The master's course is titled Innovative Leadership for Sustainable Human Development. A syllabus will be sent out several days prior to the call. I will host each session and send out the communication links shortly. These conversation are to both broaden the virtual participation in the conference and enable those attending to have some pre-thinking readiness. Towards the next 50 years....please plan on joining us. Warmest regards, Jan Sanders in Orillia, Ontario, Canada For personal communication/questions please send an email to janetasanders@hotmail.com
Leadership Theme Meeting Summary: In our next meeting, we will discuss material from The Courage to Lead: Transform Self, Transform Society. We will use the sound in the Adobe Connect meeting room. If you have not used the Adobe Connect sound before, please join the call one half hour before the time below so that we can help you set up your sound system. Please use a headset for this meeting.Computer speakers disrupt the sound for everyone else. Start Time: 10/03/2012 8:00 AM Central Daylight time Duration: 01:00 URL: http://top.adobeconnect.com/ldrtheme2012/ Cut and paste this address into your browser if it does not take you there automatically. You can purchase an e-copy of the book at http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000549321/the-courage-to-lead.as... for $3.99; we will also include the basic information for our dialogue at adobe connects. This is a great way to get connected to the work of ICA Canada on teaching the Courage to Lead and participate in a dialogue on the new sense of leadership ----- Original Message ----- ----- Original Message ----- From: Janet Sanders To: Order Ecumenical Community Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:09 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] Growing a New Sense of Leadership SAVE THE HOUR Dear Colleagues, As part of the pre-conference ICAI gathering in Nepal the 'Growing a New Sense of Leadership' theme group will be offering two conference calls. Oct 3rd at 9am Toronto/New York Time Jeanette Stanfield and Stacy K will introduce us to the revised book "The Courage to Lead". You can get your own digital copy of this edition by going to iUniverse. In one minute you can download a copy for $3.99. We will also be sending out several key paragraphs for our discussion on the Transestablishment style. Oct 8th at 9am Toronto/New York Time Rob Work will discuss with us the curriculum he is delivering at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The master's course is titled Innovative Leadership for Sustainable Human Development. A syllabus will be sent out several days prior to the call. I will host each session and send out the communication links shortly. These conversation are to both broaden the virtual participation in the conference and enable those attending to have some pre-thinking readiness. Towards the next 50 years....please plan on joining us. Warmest regards, Jan Sanders in Orillia, Ontario, Canada For personal communication/questions please send an email to janetasanders@hotmail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
I'm catching up on email Jaime. May I republish this in the CES Musings? If so, do I need to cite another place it was published first? Herman _____ From: oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Jaime R Vergara Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 11:55 PM To: oe@lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... To colleagues related to NASA and its work, here's a "testimonial" that was in the Opinion column of the Saipan Tribune a week Tuesday. The usual caveat to the rest of the listserv: curious, welcome; not, see you at the next bend. The earthrise Armstrong
From the USS Philippine Sea, Astronaut Neil Armstrong of the US Navy, the first man to walk on the moon, had his cremated remains scattered to the four winds in the Atlantic Ocean a few days ago. It was not the personality of Armstrong, that made his final "over and out" call late July, that made us skip a heartbeat. It was the effect of the mission he undertook that got us on a particular journey. Thus, this testimonial.
I was still in my teens, pretending to be an old man, broadcasting a morning political and social commentary cum music over one of two the local commercial radios in a Cagayan town. The program was, "The love and life of old man Jaime" (ti ayat ken biag ni 'tang Jaime). Sometimes we subbed for the noon newscast and it was then that we learned of the assassination of the young JFK. We mention this because it was the young president that boldly declared his intent to send a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Armstrong made it on schedule. I was in Tar Heel country, in the Piedmont of North Carolina, when on a freezing Christmas in a house heated by burning coal in the basement, we watched photos from Apollo 8 three years before Armstrong's historic walk on Apollo 11. The blue orb in the sky rose to the shutter click of a camera hovering over the moon, taking an image usually seen on earth of the moon or the sun emerging up to the earth's horizon. In a twist on metaphor, a term and an iconic picture were born, the "earthrise", unarguably the most potent mythical symbol of the 20th century. There it was, this little planet with only the land and water boundaries visible to the eye, unmindful of the imaginary political delineations that humans have constructed through the centuries to separate parcels of territories into nations. There were just the continents and the water, exposing the reality that the separation of nations, areas, and regions are human constructs that can be deconstructed. Nations have taken lives of their own, imposed on territories for the sake of powerful vested interests. Suddenly, our Eureka occurred as we realized that the fragile ecosystem we were watching was not a made for TV illusion, but actually a "living" organism with humans acting as its brain. In 1968, that brain was already showing cancerous characteristics. I was in the United States in the middle of the civil rights crisis, a war on poverty, and waging a war in Vietnam that caused an otherwise competent president not to seek reelection. The Limits of Growth report from the Club of Rome was still four years away to notoriety, but the viciousness we were showing in dealing with the racial divide, and the devastation we were visiting on an impoverished country proud enough to say "Non" to their Gaelic colonizers and determined not to be under the imposition of a foreign rule again, was just unconscionable. It was then, in a feat of youthful idealism, and prophetic realism, that we chose the "earthrise" to be our home. A radical transformation occurred that took us from a peasant boy of the northern Luzon hinterlands, to becoming a glocal citizen, though we were still a decade away before we started using the portmanteau, a morpheme of "thinking globally, acting locally". The picture of the earthrise has since graced our living space, externally and internally. As part of my introduction, and the students are likewise asked to introduce themselves using the guide questions of what, when, where, who, how, and why, I begin by claiming the earth as my hometown, and there is no place in it where I am a stranger. In my glocal being, I have appropriated a native-ness to every piece and parcel of it, animate and inanimate. The mantra in our young adulthood still prevails: All the goods of the Earth belong to all the people. All the decisions of history belong to all the people. All the inventions of humanness belong to all the people. We might have ceased actively in the sloganeering part as the focus has been at the point where the rubber hits the road. Being a glocal citizen in a deeply rooted ethnocentric culture like China (along with most of the world) is a challenge and a half. In the process, our peripatetic pedagogy has taken us to the Hausa and Yoruba of Nigeria, the Hindu Om of Maharashtra, the Aleut of Alaska, the brothers and sisters in Rome, the Nippon and their Shinkanzen in the Land of the Rising Sun, the Metis of prairie Canada, the durian and rambutan of Malaysia and Indonesia, the Kimchee of Korea, the proa of Micronesia and Polynesia, and all but one State in the Union. Now, we sup on the mein chow and gao zi of Dong Bei among people who call themselves the creatures of the middle, Zhongguoren. It has been a passage of spectacular proportions and deep currents in the incursion, emptying the pocket book in the excursion but enriching to no end the dB of the experience. Still, the expedition ain't over yet, and thanks to Neil Armstrong ("one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind") and the Apollo mission crew, this country boy of the Malay race is managing to join the great leap forward of humankind. j'aime la vie -----Original Message----- From: Tim Wegner <twegner@swbell.net> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 10:39 am Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... Ruth wrote:
I'm glad to know that a colleague was involved with the space shuttle program!
There were at least three at NASA - Larry Henscen (space station design) Lynn Oden (shuttle navigation flight controller) Tim Wegner (shuttle navigation software developer) Tim _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
I'm catching up. Great to hear your story Tim. Will be in touch with you on the living legacy. Herman -----Original Message----- From: oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Tim Wegner Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 12:21 PM To: oe@lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... 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 _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
Welcome to Inner Space, the real final frontier - which with retirement giving you five extra days to your weekend, you'll have plenty of opportunities to explore. "Engage!" Sunny Sunny Walker SunWalker Enterprises 303-587-3017 (cell) 303-671-0704 (home/office) sunwalker@comcast.net Aurora, CO No mattter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back. ~ Turkish Proverb -----Original Message----- From: oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Tim Wegner Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 10:21 AM To: oe@lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: [Oe List ...] NASA software developer moves on ... 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 _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
participants (11)
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E B -
Herman Greene -
Isobel and Jim Bishop -
Jaime R Vergara -
Janet Sanders -
Janice Ulangca -
Ken Fisher -
Randy Williams -
Ruth Landmann -
Sunny Walker -
Tim Wegner