As far as cool machines at NASA... well, it is government. Money matters. The room I'm sitting in right now has 10 Sun workstations, 4 Sun Blade workstations, 3 SGI workstations, and 1, yes, one, PC... and I'm hogging it! Cool. 8)
Well my job is REALLY mundane I don't even work in technology! But I agree it's amazingly cool that such smart, interesting, geeky people are in our midst
And hey, your work conversations sound a lot like the ones my friends and I have most of the time All hail the geeks! The geeks will take over the world!
Thanks for the explanation Paul. I figured you'd been hearing/reading stuff about it. I just want you to know I also realize the title of my thread may have contributed to it and I apologize. I really didn't mean anything by it. Sorry.
Although, this morning I was really craving a doughnut, but did anyone bring any? No. I had to buy expensive Pop-Tarts out of the machine.
That vending machine has the highest prices of any I've ever come across! :evil:
Where I work, Genesis has become known as the junk food project. Every time we have some special activity going on, such as a trajectory correction maneuver, somebody brings in treats. The last few months, as the Genesis team feverishly prepared for Earth return, we witnessed what I called "the Genesis effect" (i.e., weight gain from eating way too much junk food!). <where's an emoticon for gluttony when you need one?>
I respect the work NASA and others do and understand that not every mission is going to be successful.
So if you happen to know, how accurate were they with the entry/capture point? How far off were they? If the parachutes had opened would they have been able to retrieve it?
A few thinks:
NASA engineers are not idiots. In fact some are extremely bright and warned BEFOREHAND about booster rocket O-rings prior to the Challenger explosion, and warned BEFOREHAND about the styrofoam being a potential risk, and with that chunk that hit the Columbia during takeoff, that it very likely did damage the wing. Nasa management deemed the risks to be negligible and actually doing something proactive to be too expensive and too risky.
Too expensive? In my humble opinion, the Columbia should have been flown from airshow to airshow on the 747, showing off the ground-breaking reusable spacecraft, and then showcased in the Smithsonian. It's a shame that such a historical aircraft was doomed by knuckleheads in management when engineers were blowing whistles and getting fired for their efforts, for being troublemakers. The total loss cost more than any attempt at repair or the extremely minor payload capacity for the kit would have cost. It is disgusting. NASA's engineers could have designed a way, extremely rapidly, to rescue the damaged shuttle, if given the green light; I am convinced of it.
I'd love to see a real engineer with a real vision run NASA.
KimVette hit the nail on the head. I can't tell you how many times we've been pushed to do something on our spacecraft because a Prgram Manager needed to meet a deadline or was purposefully oblivious to the technical dangers involved.
Damn the torpedos and full speed ahead! Good way to get yourself torpedo'ed.
That said, there are some cooler heads around - not all the management is messed up. In fact, we only hear about the times when they do screw up and almost never about the times they save the bacon. My program, Gravity Probe B, was under the Congressional financial gun 7 different times (it's been in the works since 1964!). In addition to the Principal Investigator, several NASA upper bigheads fought for the program. Even now, there are several NASA managers that push to consider all aspects of a plan and hang the cost (to a point).
So I guess it's like everywhere. The good go unrewarded and the bad make the front page!
So if you happen to know, how accurate were they with the entry/capture point? How far off were they? If the parachutes had opened would they have been able to retrieve it?
Sorry, I forgot to address these questions. As far as targeting, the navigation and attitude control teams were right on the money. Without the parachute deployment, we impacted just slightly southeast of dead center of the landing ellipse. And had the parachutes deployed, it would have drifted a little further southeast. I have no doubt though that the helicopter crew would have snagged it. Those guys are really good pilots.
Hey Yogy,
Better be careful! You're up to 18 posts in 14 months! You'll lose your lurker title!
What project ya gonna work on now?
:lol: Yeah, I've become quite the talker, eh?
Genesis is just one of the projects I work on. I also work on Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Stardust. Next year our Mission Support Area will support the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and in 2007, the Phoenix Mars lander. And, the spacecraft bus for Genesis still lives. It has a couple of solar wind monitoring instruments onboard, so it could concievably support an extended mission.
Who knows? Maybe next year when GPB poops its last Helium I'll come out there. So you need to get into a position to hire me at an extraordinary rate of pay.
Oh.. never mind, gov't contract. I should just be thankful I have a job!
Re: 95% boredom...5% panic!
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