eugene@statvax.UUCP (Eugene miya) (02/11/84)
I no longer work in the space end of things (Aeronautics directorate now), but I read with amusement. The first letters I read about Westar make me think that there is a market for savage operations in space. Retreiving the failed satellites: sure, which ones? There are lots of deserving satellites. Westar and its brother are just two. The next mission will try to get one. I worked on SEASAT-A which was the first oceanographic related one, and there are numerous others. Insurance is the way to go for Westar at this stage (Lloyds of London perhaps?). Regarding the vision of NASA administrators, I can agree, I have had four details to NASA HQ, and the hardening of the veins is getting harder, but just last week, the Associate administrator (Hans Mark) stopped by and gave us a little story about the "two-stage" plan to get a shuttle and a space station. In orbit, first one, then the other, or in the Soviet case, the other and then the one. Mark and many others have vision, but it is difficult to implement these dreams. Recall the saying by Gerard Weinberg about "If architects built cities, the way programmer's program, then the first woodpecker would have knocked down civilization," that's the way it is with the space program. The builders of rockets and satellites are just hackers in their own respective fields. Sure, all of us want to travel faster than the speed of light, but we actually have to try and implement the systems to do it, and it's not easy. Part of the problem lies in the bureaucracy in NASA. The people who would over see Westar don't have UNIX, nor UUCP, and your messages fall on deaf ears. This is because there is a lack of trained CS personnel with a UNIX background (real UNIX hackers). Both of these are brought about by hard budget times. Each NASA Center has a specific mission: manned space (Johnson Space Center is not on UUCP), earth orbiting satellites (Goddard SFC), deep space (JPL), etc. as an effort to save money. In closing, it should be mentioned at Dr. Mark mentioned plans after 2000, in particular the possibility of a manned-Mars mission, after the permanent establishment of an orbiting station [An aside: a point mentioned in a conversation I overheard: most of the people (companies) interested in a space station are interested in a zero-g environment [as well as a vacuum], not artificial gravity, another (economic) reason for non-rotating stations]. Don't quote me, but Mark's opinion is that once you get off the earth, it's just a short hop past the moon to Mars, so make a small quiet moon base, but GO to Mars! Mark speculated that there might be yet another space race to reach Mars. The above, it must be noted is Mark's opinion. Others would prefer an un-manned sampler mission, etc.. Just remember, all these missions are going to require computer people on Earth and in space. NASA is not the most hospitable environment to work in, but it can be done. There is life in NASA. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center p.s. my first recommendation to the NASA people from JSC and LaRC was: GET UUCP running!
al@ames-lm.UUCP (Al Globus) (02/21/84)
The subject is a bit of a misnomer, but.... JSC (Johnson Space Center) has purchases 10 or so MASSCOMPs for shuttle mission control. MASSCOMP is a UNIX/68000 box. I believe it has UUCP. Hopefully they'll be on the net soon.