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NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

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Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#51

Post by PurpleRamen »

quotemstr wrote: post #33
PurpleRamen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids these days... Why would someone in their right mind think working on the Voyager project could damage their careers? It's an isolated legacy-project with no future. Mostly everything you learn for it will be only useful for this specific project, so all time to invest there is time to can't invest into something useful. Sure, there are probably some parts to learn from this too, but It's less than what your co…

You should hire for personality characteristics, not knowledge. I'll take anyone who's worked on a weird obscure system and figured it out from first principles over Front End React Dev #8482828 with Opinions on algebraic effects.

> You should hire for personality characteristics, not knowledge.

I'm not sure what personality characteristic are supposed to be in this context. But if you mean skills, then you have a false assumption. NASA and the surrounding industry is not really the environment where they grow boring react devs. For every legacy project like voyager, they have a dozen frontier-projects and other weird obscure jobs where one can gain the same skills, but better, with more potential for further growing. And someone early in their career will naturally choose something with more potential for their future.

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#52

Post by Rohansi »

roflmaostc wrote: post #47
doodlesdev wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you want LLMs touching projects that cost over $800.000.000, even to assemble "documentation" (since the LLM can't really document in as much it's translating what it's reading, because documentation includes much more information than what's stored in the code itself). It's a cool idea, though, I'd like to see this done as an experiment :)

I am fully aware of the costs and so on. But i can certainly imagine that LLMs help with the process of understanding and editing old code. And of course you need to test and debug before you ship to production.

> i can certainly imagine that LLMs help with the process of understanding and editing old code.

Can you trust it with assembly language for a custom-built CPU with its own instruction set? Even if you digitized all of the documentation you have no idea what was lost since 1977 (or earlier), or what was never written down to begin with.

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#53

Post by 1over137 »

SirFatty wrote: post #11
tech-no-logical wrote: post #8

I highly recommend watching "Its Quieter in the Twilight" ( https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9rrxr ) a cool documentary about the engineers still running voyager (a lot of them have been on it for decades)

Video isn't there... but I found it on YT. https://youtu.be/RIP1p5gAoak?si=ftTEGYFJscXJPaJm

Unfortunately geoblocked it seems.

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#54

Post by sumeno »

rvnx wrote: post #49
birdsongs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they were never meant to last this long. NASA has a shoestring budget. I understand not taking the time and resources to do that when it could stop working a week later.

NASA has a significantly larger overall budget than SpaceX for info

And far more responsibilities too. You can't just directly compare budgets

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#55

Post by SoftTalker »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #22
rbanffy wrote: post #2

> younger engineers often have the capability but not the inclination Kids these days... Why would someone in their right mind think working on the Voyager project could damage their careers? You can work on new and fancy tools all you want to improve supporting tools, and it's still one of the coolest space missions active. Plus, it has a real end - at some point, support will be further reduced and the person will…

> Kids these days... Why would someone in their right mind think working on the Voyager project could damage their careers? It's an isolated legacy-project with no future. Mostly everything you learn for it will be only useful for this specific project, so all time to invest there is time to can't invest into something useful. Sure, there are probably some parts to learn from this too, but It's less than what your co…

Understanding assembly language (any architecture) give insights into how computers work that are still valuable and relevant today. Almost nobody still writes code in assembly, but understanding it at least conceptually is still worth something.

If I were hiring, I would almost always prefer a candidate who had some experience at machine/assembly programming to one that didn't, all else being roughly equal.

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#56

Post by SoftTalker »

anthonj wrote: post #42
rbanffy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you worked on that is as cool as a space probe that's cruising in interstellar space and still collecting valuable data? There are a lot of things as cool as, done by people I know, such as the gyros on the Webb telescope, the APU in the F-35, or a small rack-mountable Cesium reference clock, but there aren't many opportunities like that.

That's the thing. You only have the cool factor, but that wears off very quickly when you are maintaining legacy code and tools and then your collegues are playing with the new hot and shiny toys. I won't write about the projects I've been involved with for privacy, but to give you an idea some of my old team members were involved in ams-02 for example.

You would be able to go to your grave saying "I worked on the Voyager project." That will never not be interesting, or memorable.

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#57

Post by birdsongs »

rvnx wrote: post #49
birdsongs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they were never meant to last this long. NASA has a shoestring budget. I understand not taking the time and resources to do that when it could stop working a week later.

NASA has a significantly larger overall budget than SpaceX for info

How is that at all relevant to my comment? Spacex isn't part of this conversation.

A budget is a budget and all I said was I understood digitizing being down prioritized as a project when you have to get other things done (like SLS).

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#58

Post by butlike »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #22
rbanffy wrote: post #2

> younger engineers often have the capability but not the inclination Kids these days... Why would someone in their right mind think working on the Voyager project could damage their careers? You can work on new and fancy tools all you want to improve supporting tools, and it's still one of the coolest space missions active. Plus, it has a real end - at some point, support will be further reduced and the person will…

> Kids these days... Why would someone in their right mind think working on the Voyager project could damage their careers? It's an isolated legacy-project with no future. Mostly everything you learn for it will be only useful for this specific project, so all time to invest there is time to can't invest into something useful. Sure, there are probably some parts to learn from this too, but It's less than what your co…

You don't need to push the needle as a junior though. It's a "completed project" where one can glean many insights. And the matter of transferrable skills is simply a matter of being able to say how what you learned applies in a different context. A useful skill in-and-of-itself

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#59

Post by butlike »

anthonj wrote: post #6
glimshe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further... This project gives a rare opportunity for a young engineer to learn to build truly mission critical, resilient software while requiring complete, top to bottom understanding of the software and hardware stack.

I am no longer a junior, but would have been upset to be tasked with refreshing the old historical obsolete laundry (no matter how sacred or distinguished), expecially when I already had experience delivering safety critical products packing much more modern technologies. The opportunity they would be offering is not rare at all! The opportunity to research and design something truly new on the other way is very scar…

Is that because juniors want to leave their name on something? I ask honestly since I shared a lot of the same sentiment as you, and never quite got an understanding as to why working on the cool new thing was "more fun" even if a lot of the projects under-the-hood were recycled.

Re: NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

#60

Post by butlike »

lexicality wrote: post #44
xingped wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and I would think the same, but I also feel like many things I've been sold as "door openers" for interviews unfortunately tend to ultimately be things that no one cares about.

I think people tend to squander door openers with bad layouts or information density. Most CVs are essentially the same as each other, just a bullet point list of jira ticket titles. Do I care if someone has won the world championship for ping-pong 3 years in a row? Not particularly. Does it make them stand out against a sea of slop? Only if I actually see that info when skimming! But if I do see it, I'm probably goi…

So you're giving me an idea for my midlife career change CV. Lead with the cool and interesting fact above all else, then have the normal CV menu fare at the end.

Hmm this is also drumming up the hard question of: What have I actually done which is ACTUALLY an attention-grabber...

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