by Henry B.
I went to work for Martin Marietta
Aerospace in 1972, having been a customer service engineer for the first
commercial inertial navigation system, the Carousel IV installed on the first
747s. I was hired by a small venture called Martron Systems, located in
downtown Littleton, Colorado. Martron manufactured automatic test equipment
used by the airlines to test avionics equipment. Martron had a contract to
deliver a test program for the INS, but had been unable to make it work. I was
successful in writing the test programs (in a language called ATLAS), much to
the delight of management. I recall I was given the weekly prize of two free
tickets to a Denver Broncos game! I went on to work on a variety of programs,
including working at JPL in Pasadena, validating the software on the Galileo
spacecraft. It was the start of a long career in aerospace, although I have
fond memories of Waterton.
