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I mean at the age of 60… it’s gonna be hard to top a career that had you writing code sent to space. That being said, I imagine it would be very hard to be a j

I mean at the age of 60… it’s gonna be hard to top a career that had you writing code sent to space. That being said, I imagine it would be very hard to be a junior employee in such an environment. Fresh and green behind the ears, full of ideas and surrounded by people almost ready to retire and pretty set in their ways. Who knows. Maybe these folks make an effort to stay current with progress in development tools and whatnot. But it is easy to imagine them being very stuck in their ways. Some for good reason but some because “that’s how we’ve always done it”. I’d love to be told I was wrong and all their shop did a good job staying on top of industry wide progress.

cowmix 5y ago
True. These guys were maintaining (and updating) software for a hardware platform that was 35+ years old.
jimhefferon 5y ago
> That being said, I imagine it would be very hard to be a junior employee in such an environment. My father was a senior admin in the vendor that made the mirror, so I had summer jobs working on Hubble-adjacent projects. One summer my cubicle was next to the cubicle of a new engineer who worked on it. They ground the mirror in one facility and then trucked it to another one, many miles away, for silvering. This new engineer was tasked with drawing up the protocol for loading it on the truck (it was driven down in the early morning on a Sunday to reduce problems with traffic). He finishes the document draft and calls down the senior engineer for a look-over. They are discussing the part where the cranes (kind-of like fork lifts) lift the mirror. There are three cranes, and three places built into the mirror where they hook on. "How do you know the cranes will take the load?" "Here are the manufacturer's specifications, saying that each will take more than half the total weight. There are three cranes, so there is sufficient capacity even if one crane fails." "How do you know the crane will take the specified weight?" "They were vendor certified last week; I was there." "That's not enough. The night before, you and another engineer will personally go down there and personally load the specified weight on each crane. Then you will each sign a paper. The mirror will not move without that paper, containing both your personal names." Made a big impression on me.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Amazing story! In space projects there's no space for human error. Reminds me of that one SpaceX mission failure, with F9 exploding shortly after launch. IIRC, it was quickly determined that the cause was a strut from a third-party vendor that wasn't up to declared spec.

cowmix 5y ago

True. These guys were maintaining (and updating) software for a hardware platform that was 35+ years old.

jimhefferon 5y ago

> That being said, I imagine it would be very hard to be a junior employee in such an environment. My father was a senior admin in the vendor that made the mirror, so I had summer jobs working on Hubble-adjacent projects. One summer my cubicle was next to the cubicle of a new engineer who worked on it. They ground the mirror in one facility and then trucked it to another one, many miles away, for silvering. This new engineer was tasked with drawing up the protocol for loading it on the truck (it was driven down in the early morning on a Sunday to reduce problems with traffic). He finishes the document draft and calls down the senior engineer for a look-over. They are discussing the part where the cranes (kind-of like fork lifts) lift the mirror. There are three cranes, and three places built into the mirror where they hook on. "How do you know the cranes will take the load?" "Here are the manufacturer's specifications, saying that each will take more than half the total weight. There are three cranes, so there is sufficient capacity even if one crane fails." "How do you know the crane will take the specified weight?" "They were vendor certified last week; I was there." "That's not enough. The night before, you and another engineer will personally go down there and personally load the specified weight on each crane. Then you will each sign a paper. The mirror will not move without that paper, containing both your personal names." Made a big impression on me.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Amazing story! In space projects there's no space for human error. Reminds me of that one SpaceX mission failure, with F9 exploding shortly after launch. IIRC, it was quickly determined that the cause was a strut from a third-party vendor that wasn't up to declared spec.