The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
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The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
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Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#2There is so much cool stuff in this article. The engineers stuck in the 70s with modern tools to aid them, but that only gets them so far. The love and dedication to this spacecraft. These engineers believe in the mission of space so deeply they married themselves to Voyager. A marriage more substantial than many real marriages. Just thinking about this dedication and how space exploration is, in my opinion, one of the few ways we can truly advance as a species beyond our ruts here on Earth gave me chills. There is something, existential, poetic, and sad about the lonely work these engineers have done for so long.
If you didn't read this article the portraits of the engineers and snapshots of the lives is moving.
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#3I recommend seeing The Farthest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znTdk_de_K8) if you have any interest at all in this.
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#4You know, getting these electronics systems ready, sending out to deep space and communicating with these systems is an incredible feat.
But, for me, another amazing thing about these long term projects is the sheer amount of knowledge that needs to be maintained and passed on to new people, over the course of several decades. To pull it off, this need of knowledge management and transfer must be so deeply engraved in the culture of the organization. How do they do it in this day and age of "FAQs", "Forums" and "Helpdesks"? :)
In all seriousness, what do you do to maintain "knowledge" in your organization?
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#5This article is pretty dang cool. Looking over the pictures of the NASA engineers I couldn't help but think "Damn, that engineer looks TIRED". Did anybody else think the same thing?
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#6You know, getting these electronics systems ready, sending out to deep space and communicating with these systems is an incredible feat. But, for me, another amazing thing about these long term projects is the sheer amount of knowledge that needs to be maintained and passed on to new people, over the course of several decades. To pull it off, this need of knowledge management and transfer must be so deeply engraved i…
This is a good insight. Having read about NASA's culture some from books like "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth", they tend to be very dedicated to documenting everything. Every last little detail goes into handbooks or manuals about how they fixed problems or things that could have gotten someone killed, adapting procedures to take into account even the smallest of practical details. These engineers come from a different era. You can see all the printed binders on their desks. I think in many ways the process of documentation for space missions is more expensive, pain staking, and solid than modern practices. I think also they do have the advantage of all working in the same place. You just go to Tom, the human search engine/librarian, and ask him what he knows about thing X. (The article mentioned Tom was the self styled "librarian" of the project). Most organizations need a "Tom" of their own and are poorer for not having one.
Our company is building a remote team, and similar to Gitlab, we are discovering that staying in sync is not just a good value but a way of life. Trello, wiki, and code help us repeat our assessment work and ensure everyone is on the same page.
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#7You know, getting these electronics systems ready, sending out to deep space and communicating with these systems is an incredible feat. But, for me, another amazing thing about these long term projects is the sheer amount of knowledge that needs to be maintained and passed on to new people, over the course of several decades. To pull it off, this need of knowledge management and transfer must be so deeply engraved i…
You document everything and peer review all the time. NASA has an incredible amount of documentation on anything they do. There are controlled processes for everything so whenever you need to go back and see how someone made something, there is an old document for it. The only thing that can't really be passed down is familiarity. You can have the old engineers write down every process, method, or quirk of a system but the new guy still needs to read all of it and get familiar with the system. Long term projects like these involve a lot of learning from other people so that there is a continuous chain of knowledgeable people running the project, like a master and apprentice kind of situation. And if the chain is ever broken, you come back using the documents and information passed on to get up and running as smooth as possible.
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#8You know, getting these electronics systems ready, sending out to deep space and communicating with these systems is an incredible feat. But, for me, another amazing thing about these long term projects is the sheer amount of knowledge that needs to be maintained and passed on to new people, over the course of several decades. To pull it off, this need of knowledge management and transfer must be so deeply engraved i…
This is a good insight. Having read about NASA's culture some from books like "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth", they tend to be very dedicated to documenting everything. Every last little detail goes into handbooks or manuals about how they fixed problems or things that could have gotten someone killed, adapting procedures to take into account even the smallest of practical details. These engineers come from a…
To give some kind of context on more "modern" methods, we use stupendous numbers of PDFs, DOORS for requirements traceability and tons of code commenting. At last count our project had 0.73 commenting lines per line of code (and we use Allman style bracketing).
We are also putting non mission-critical information in a Wiki; basically as a tl;dr of the more dense documentation.
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#9You know, getting these electronics systems ready, sending out to deep space and communicating with these systems is an incredible feat. But, for me, another amazing thing about these long term projects is the sheer amount of knowledge that needs to be maintained and passed on to new people, over the course of several decades. To pull it off, this need of knowledge management and transfer must be so deeply engraved i…
You document everything and peer review all the time. NASA has an incredible amount of documentation on anything they do. There are controlled processes for everything so whenever you need to go back and see how someone made something, there is an old document for it. The only thing that can't really be passed down is familiarity. You can have the old engineers write down every process, method, or quirk of a system b…
I guess beign a goverment agency helps.
After all they're accountable for spending taxpayer dollars on stuff that can crash, burn, explode, and in order to keep funds coming they must be able to prove they're not just making money vanish for no reason.
Re: The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good insight. Having read about NASA's culture some from books like "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth", they tend to be very dedicated to documenting everything. Every last little detail goes into handbooks or manuals about how they fixed problems or things that could have gotten someone killed, adapting procedures to take into account even the smallest of practical details. These engineers come from a…
To give some kind of context on more "modern" methods, we use stupendous numbers of PDFs, DOORS for requirements traceability and tons of code commenting. At last count our project had 0.73 commenting lines per line of code (and we use Allman style bracketing). We are also putting non mission-critical information in a Wiki; basically as a tl;dr of the more dense documentation.
Oh man, I hated DOORS so much. POS software. I dont doubt its useful, but using it was the bane of my existance