by Warren
R.
A passion for space runs in my blood. My father (Bob) began his
career as a “rocket scientist” with AC Sparkplug Company in Wisconsin, where he
was assigned to program the simulation of the Titan two-stage missile, using a pair
of IBM 650s. It turned out that the IBM 650s were way too puny, so he every
Monday to Detroit, GM's Tech Center, where the “large-scale” IBM 704 was
available. They likewise were way too slow, but it was what was available, so
he worked nearly non-stop, round the clock for months, having food brought in,
sleeping on the floor or on desks, going to a motel every third day for a
shower if he was lucky. But Sputnik went overhead, he and his equally young
team saw it and were energized by it. And during this effort, the Butterfly
Effect was “discovered”–not that they knew it. Programming changes made in
binary (imagine!) caused an error in the last place of a constant, and in the
hypersensitive equations, this caused a targeting error of over two miles and a
nightmarish debugging effort, ultimately resolved.
More than five decades later, I have a fantastic career in the
space business. I’ve had the privilege of working on software for the Titan
34D, Titan IV and Atlas rockets, the Centaur upperstage, numerous spacecraft
including Mars probes and landers, Stardust, Genesis, multiple classified
programs and SBIRS The challenges have
been great and the programs exciting, with more to come!
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| I have a fantastic career! |
