I am reviving an old thread that had included Margaret Hamilton. There was an absolutely extraordinary 1.4-square-mile portrait <https://www.businessinsider.com/google-honors-apollo-11-margaret-hamilton-watch-video-2019-7> of NASA software developer Margaret Hamilton that used more than 107,000 mirrors from the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert, a solar thermal power plant in southern California. Hamilton led the development team responsible for programming the in-flight software for Apollo 11 and all of NASA's manned Apollo missions. Hamilton, now 82, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama for her leadership in 2016. She also became a Computer History Museum Fellow <https://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/2017-chm-fellow-margaret-hamilton/> in 2017. _________________________ Brian A. Berg / bberg@StanfordAlumni.org Berg Software Design 14500 Big Basin Way, Suite F, Saratoga, CA 95070 USA Voice: 408.741.5010 / Cell: 408.568.2505 Consulting: Flash Memory/USB/Storage/Patents visit the Storage Cornucopia: www.bswd.com FMS Technical Chair: www.FlashMemorySummit.com IEEE Milestone <http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones> Coordinator and History Chair for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/> IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ieee.org/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV <http://www.CaliforniaConsultants.org> Board Director IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee <http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 6:33 PM Jeffrey Yost <yostx003@umn.edu> wrote:
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.
Best, Jeff
Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D. Director, Charles Babbage Institute Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
222 21st Avenue South University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624 5050 Phone 612 625 8054 Fax
On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 5:58 PM Deborah Douglas <ddouglas@mit.edu> wrote:
Colleagues,
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: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NASAsFirstA-508-ebook.pdf ).
Debbie Douglas
On May 31, 2019, at 5:49 PM, Jeffrey Yost <yostx003@umn.edu> wrote:
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.
Jeff
Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D. Director, Charles Babbage Institute Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
222 21st Avenue South University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624 5050 Phone 612 625 8054 Fax
On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 4:08 PM Corinna Kirsch < corinna.kirsch@stonybrook.edu> wrote:
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?
http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817
http://wg18.criticalcodestudies.com/index.php?p=/discussion/17/week-1-gender...
http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817
Corinna J. Kirsch PhD Candidate in Modern Art History, Criticism, and Theory <http://art.stonybrook.edu/person/corinna-kirsch-mcdonald/> Stony Brook University, State University of New York Phone: +1 (936) 697-1902
[image: Stony Brook University logo]
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On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 12:27 PM David C. Brock <dcb@dcbrock.net> wrote:
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.
Just a couple of quick thoughts... +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb@dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Skype: dcbrock Twitter: @dcbrock
On May 31, 2019, at 1:48 PM, Alex Roland <alex.roland@duke.edu> wrote:
Friends:
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 *Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993 *(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.
Thanks, Alex Roland
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*Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *• Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society • Room N51-209 • 265 Massachusetts Avenue • Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 • ddouglas@mit.edu • 617-253-1766 telephone • 617-253-8994 facsimile • http://mitmuseum.mit.edu • http://museum.mit.edu/150
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