<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Certainly agree completely with Debbie about Paul and David's excellent books and their relevance to both development and use of computing and software systems at/for NASA. Given Alex's excellent book on DARPA and the terrific book by Arthur Norberg and Judy O'Neil on earlier years of DARPA and "transforming" computing I guess I was thinking in the more limited way of how did NASA compare to DARPA and NSF in advancing computing through (especially) basic (but also applied) research in computer science (both internally and particularly funding programs)--in which NASA's RIACS, NASA HEC Research Program are very important. NASA's systems, often developed in conjunction with or wholly by major contractors, had a major impact on computing especially as onboard computing had many special needs with balancing performance, reliability and resilience, maintenance, space, weight, human operations...--understanding of which Paul and David's path breaking works greatly advance. NASA had/has many contractual relationships with FFRDC's (and especially the one that tried to, and did, keep a low profile as they focused on R&D for our nuclear arsenal missile delivery systems, nonprofit Aerospace Corporation HQ'ed in El Segundo, which was as large and w/ as many Ph.D. scientists/engineers as nearby RAND in Santa Monica), with defense contractors for-profit aerospace firms like Lockheed and Raytheon (which built the Apollo Guidance Computer--Frank O'Brien wrote a quite technical book on the Apollo Guidance Computer's architecture and operating system published by Springer). NASA also has a monograph series in collaboration with Springer on Systems and Software Engineering focused on NASA systems. CBI's materials on the topic are extensive. The Burroughs Corporation's ATLAS Guidance Computer, was the guidance system for the ATLAS Missile at C.C., FL in 1958. We have the Burroughs Corp. records and material on this. The Federal Systems Divisions of IBM, Burroughs, Control Data (we have CDC Corp. Records) and the other major mainframe firms were frequent contractors for NASA (well documented in our archives). This was not just for the computers, but programming services, systems integration, maintenance, and operations (NASA's Mission Control in Houston was heavily IBM System Engineers from its FSD--thoroughly documented in IBM Corporate Archives). Control Data in particular had a bunch of important contracts with NASA in the 1960s and 1970s as a (and for a time THE) leading supercomputer firm.</div><div><br></div><div>Best, Jeff</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> <br clear="all"></div><div><div class="gmail_signature" dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D.</div>
<div>Director, Charles Babbage Institute</div>
<div>Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine</div>
<div> </div>
<div>222 21st Avenue South</div>
<div>University of Minnesota</div>
<div>Minneapolis, MN 55455</div>
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<div>612 624 5050 Phone</div>
<div>612 625 8054 Fax</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 5:58 PM Deborah Douglas <<a href="mailto:ddouglas@mit.edu">ddouglas@mit.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid">
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Colleagues,
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<div>The first work should be Paul Ceruzzi’s “Beyond the Limits” which explores the special relationship between aerospace and computing. Over the years, Paul has made many more contributions on this subject (including a fine paper at the 2016 SHOT
meeting in Singapore). David Mindell’s “Digital Apollo” does an excellent job capturing the story of the Apollo Guidance Computer but as many know, this is hardly the only computer story in the space program. I would recommend Robert Ferguson’s “NASA’s First
A” as a good place to start as it includes a description of many projects, most importantly the development of the structural analysis software package NASTRAN. (The book can be downloaded: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NASAsFirstA-508-ebook.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NASAsFirstA-508-ebook.pdf</a>).</div>
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<div>Debbie Douglas</div>
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<div>On May 31, 2019, at 5:49 PM, Jeffrey Yost <<a href="mailto:yostx003@umn.edu" target="_blank">yostx003@umn.edu</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div>NASA Ames has the RIACS the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science, its founding Director was esteemed computer scientist and past ACM President Peter J. Denning (now a Prof. at Naval Post Graduate in Monterey). NASA Langley has computing
research programs. NASA has major research programs funding government labs, FFRDCs, and university researchers, in particular, its Program in High-End Computing (HEC)/Supercomputing. There are quite a number of hits to NASA in CBI finding aids (hundreds)
as well as CBI oral histories.</div>
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<div>Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D.</div>
<div>Director, Charles Babbage Institute</div>
<div>Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine</div>
<div> </div>
<div>222 21st Avenue South</div>
<div>University of Minnesota</div>
<div>Minneapolis, MN 55455</div>
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<div>612 624 5050 Phone</div>
<div>612 625 8054 Fax</div>
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<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 4:08 PM Corinna Kirsch <<a href="mailto:corinna.kirsch@stonybrook.edu" target="_blank">corinna.kirsch@stonybrook.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Depending on the nature of the journalist's interest in "computer development," I'd suggest pointing the journalist in the direction of Margaret Hamilton and team's work on Apollo software. I'm not sure what type of interest the journalist
has in "computer development": big machines, fast processors, virtual reality software, prototyping?
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<div><a href="http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817" target="_blank">http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817</a></div>
<div><a href="http://wg18.criticalcodestudies.com/index.php?p=/discussion/17/week-1-gendering-the-apollo-11-onboard-in-flight-software" target="_blank">http://wg18.criticalcodestudies.com/index.php?p=/discussion/17/week-1-gendering-the-apollo-11-onboard-in-flight-software</a></div>
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<div><a href="http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817" target="_blank">http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817</a></div>
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<div><font color="#444444" face="times new roman, serif" size="2">Corinna J. Kirsch<br>
<a href="http://art.stonybrook.edu/person/corinna-kirsch-mcdonald/" target="_blank">PhD Candidate in Modern Art History, Criticism, and Theory</a></font></div>
<div><font color="#444444" face="times new roman, serif" size="2">Stony Brook University, State University of New York</font></div>
<div><font color="#444444" face="times new roman, serif" size="2">Phone: +1 (936) 697-1902</font></div>
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<div style="font-size:12.8px"><img alt="Stony Brook University logo" src="http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/email/images/SBU_signature.gif"><br>
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<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 12:27 PM David C. Brock <<a href="mailto:dcb@dcbrock.net" target="_blank">dcb@dcbrock.net</a>> wrote:<br>
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<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">NASA was a sponsor of Englebart’s lab at SRI. NASA also funded work in computer graphics and animation. NASA’s JPL is an important site in the history of computer animation.
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<div>Just a couple of quick thoughts...<br>
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+++++++++++++++<br>
David C. Brock<br>
<a href="mailto:dcb@dcbrock.net" target="_blank">dcb@dcbrock.net</a><br>
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<div style="text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal">
40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 <br>
Mobile: 413-522-3578 <br>
Skype: dcbrock <br>
Twitter: @dcbrock</div>
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<div>On May 31, 2019, at 1:48 PM, Alex Roland <<a href="mailto:alex.roland@duke.edu" target="_blank">alex.roland@duke.edu</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Friends:
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<div> I have been a passive member of SIGCIS for many years now, even though I am no longer an active researcher in the field. Still, I follow your correspondence with great interest. I am writing now because I have received an inquiry from
a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who is interested in NASA’s historical contributions to computer development. I know from research on my book
<i>Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993
</i>(2002) that NASA was involved in the Federal High Performance Computing Program in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I do not, however, know of other significant contributions by NASA to computer development. If anyone knows of such contributions, I would
be happy to know about them.</div>
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<div>Thanks, Alex Roland</div>
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