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Conference 7.286::digital

Title:	The Digital way of working

Moderator:	QUARK::LIONELON

Created:	Fri Feb 14 1986
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5321
Total number of notes:	139771

858.0. "DIGITAL employee to participate in shuttle program" by AKO569::JOY (Gotta get back to Greece!) Thu Jul 13 1989 01:16

<Many forwards removed>

From:	TONKA::JOHNSTON "BOB JOHNSTON (408) 864-6063  12-Jul-1989 0858" 12-JUL-1989 08:57
To:	@ASIP_MT
CC:	JOHNSTON
Subj:	DIGITAL EMPLOYEE SELECTED AS SPACE SHUTTLE ASTONAUT (AGAIN BUT CORRECT)


           Digital Employee Selected As Space Shuttle Astronaut

    Author: Franco Malerba                
    Date:   03-Jul-1989

    My dear colleagues,

    Something quite extraordinary has happened to me last week: I have
    been selected by the Italian Space Agency and by NASA as one of the
    two Payload Specialist Candidates for the Shuttle mission TSS-1 due
    to fly in May 1991. 

    Back in April I had participated to the pre-selections in Rome with
    ASI and the Italian Air Force and in May I had gone through the
    final steps of the competition at the Stanford University in San
    Francisco-Palo Alto and at NASA in Houston.

    Last Friday June 30 the big news: Franco Malerba and Franco 
    Rossitto are the two chosen to go ahead for the two-years training
    in the States. In one year time one of us will fly on the Shuttle
    and the other one will act as Back-up and as Ground-Specialist for
    the same TSS-1 mission.

    I am very proud of this achievement as an individual, as a 
    representative of my Country and as a Digital employee, and I want
    now to share this with you all.

    In the near future I will have to relocate (again!!) to the US; 
    from the little bit I know, it looks like I will be based for one 
    year in Denver Colorado at the Martin Marietta premises and then 
    for another year in Houston Texas at the Astronauts headquarters for
    the specific space training for the mission.

    The current plan for the mission is May 91, and if all goes well I
    hope and dream to see you all at my return "down to earth.."

    All the best to you all and your families, big hug to your children
    who dream to become an Astronaut! 

    God bless you!

    Franco Malerba

                                THE MISSION

    With the Tethered Satellite mission ASI and NASA will test a new 
    concept of deploying satellites from the Shuttle hanging from a 
    long wire up to 100 km long; a very spectacular and also a very 
    innovative approach to Space Research in the fields of 
    Electrodynamics, Atmospheric Physics and Telecommunications. The
    major contractors involved are Martin Marietta and Aeritalia.

                               THE SELECTION

    Some of you may know that in 77-78 I participated to the Selection
    of the European astronauts for the first Spacelab mission and
    managed to get in the final four but did not quite make it for the
    first flight (which was done by Dr. Ulf Merbold from FRG).

    This very year, I heard through contacts in the Aerospace world 
    that the newly born Italian Space Agency - ASI was going to select
    the first Italian Astronaut for the joint ASI-NASA project 
    "Tethered Satellite" due to fly in May 91.

    Taking leave from Digital, I passed a first medical screening at 
    the Italian Air Force, then an English Knowledge test, then a 
    scientific exam with a board of Italian Scientists (Broglio, 
    Napolitano, Formisano..). 

    With other 10 candidates, was then invited (May 22) to appear 
    before a Board of Scientists at Stanford University in San 
    Francisco (the Investigators Working group) who are responsible for
    the definition and implementation of the scientific experiments of
    the TSS-1 Space mission. There I was selected among four finalists
    and sent immediately to NASA-JSC in Houston for the NASA class III
    medical exams.

    All four finalists were found acceptable from a medical point of 
    view and the two best ones at the scientific board - Franco Malerba
    and Franco Rossitto - were retained. This is what has been announced
    June 30 in Rome by the Secretary of the Italian Minister for Science
    and Technology and by NASA.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
858.1	DEC's first node in space!	AUSTIN::FLATLEY	Them bats is smart, they use radar	`Fri Jul 14 1989 04:04`	15
	That's great news. Now if only DEC could get a channel allocated on NASA's communication link. He could take up a uVAX and we could have our first node in space! He could even host a VAXnotes conference. Imagine everyone in DEC having an opportunity to post a topic in space... Seriously it could demonstrate the possibilities of a more normal work place in space. Wouldn't it be good to have at least e-mail capability of those who will be working on board the space station? Of course the first mail he would get is one of those damn chain letters. /Bob
858.2	death, taxes, and ...	TRCO01::FINNEY	Keep cool, but do not freeze ...	`Fri Jul 14 1989 04:16`	8
	>>Imagine everyone in DEC having an opportunity to post >> a topic in space... ... and the moderators will write lock the first topic ... ;-) Scooter
858.3		NOTIME::SACKS	Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085	`Fri Jul 14 1989 13:28`	1
	Does anybody know what Franco does for Digital?
858.4		IND::MISRAHI	This page intentionally left Blank	`Mon Jul 17 1989 15:31`	3
	I don't know what Franco does, but I know many people who are Space cadets. :-)
858.5		BUNYIP::QUODLING	Just a Coupl'a days....	`Mon Jul 17 1989 23:01`	7
	re .4 Indeed, once Franco has soared into outer space, perhaps Marketing will be a good place for him. q
858.6		CSSE32::LESLIE		`Tue Jul 18 1989 14:16`	1
	Depending on whether his orbit is hyperbolic or not....
858.7	E/ACT	SPITZE::KREMKOW	Theo Kremkow, node OSITEL, at UFC	`Tue Jul 18 1989 15:09`	5
	Franco works as a consultant for the telecom industry in the european ACT in Valbonne/France. Until recently I had the pleasure to work with him in the same group. theo.
858.8		BISTRO::BREICHNER		`Thu Jul 27 1989 12:39`	14
	.7 (Theo) is right about Franco's present job. He's been around for quite a while. I had the pleasure to kow him back in 77/78 when he was "Application engineer" for CSS/NSG Annecy and operating in Italy. Real nice fellow. I hardly believed the dates in the basenote, assuming this was from the past, but as it seems real, I am really delighted to see him getting close to the "dream of his life". I happened to meet Franco in a corridor this week, had no time to talk, just exchanged smiles and didn't realize that his smile might have been brighter than usual! Fred
858.9	DEC & Voyager	PNO::HEISER	back in Phoenix	`Thu Sep 07 1989 23:38`	38
	forwardings deleted Date: 28-Aug-1989 10:48am EDT From: Shel Sherman @LAO SHERMAN.SHEL AT GOLETAA1 AT DOHENY AT TUS Dept: LAGD SALES Tel No: 213/417-4249 Subject: "HAVE YOU HEARD?" WHILE MOST OF US HAVE ENJOYED THE BRILLIANT AND "AWE-STRIKING" IMAGES FORWARDED TO US FROM VOYAGER FROM BILLIONS OF MILES AWAY, FEW OF US KNOW THAT THE ENTIRE IMAGE ENHANCEMENT PROCESS TAKES PLACE ON A 4 NODE VAX CLUSTER AT THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY. THIS MONTH, AND ESPECIALLY THIS PAST WEEK, THE FIELD SERVICE DISTRICT, REPORTING TO AGGIE RUCKER, HAS BEEN ON FULL ALERT WITH 7 X 24 COVERAGE AT THE LAB. OUR EFFORTS TO PREPARE FOR, PREVENT AND REACT TO ANY POSSIBLE CONTINGENCY IS ONE OF THE STORIES NOT IN THE PRESS THIS WEEK ABOUT DIGITAL. AS DIGITAL EMPLOYEES WORKING IN THE GOVERNMENT/AEROSPACE SECTOR, WE CAN ALL BE PROUD OF THE OUTSTANDING JOB BEING DONE BY OUR FIELD SERVICE TEAMMATES TO ASSURE THAT THE COUNTRY'S SPACE PROGRAM AND NASA'S PRESTIGE CONTINUES TO FLOURISH. ONE HAS TO ONLY IMAGINE A DIFFERENT SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES TO TRULY APPRECIATE THIS WEEK'S NEWS. WE CAN ALSO BE PROUD THAT OUR DESIGN ENGINEERS AND OUR HARDWARE ARCHITECTURE ARE AS GOOD AS THEY ARE. WE OFTEN TAKE THIS SORT OF THING FOR GRANTED. FIELD SERVICE'S OUTSTANDING EFFORT CAN ONLY LEAD TO A BETTER RELATIONSHIP WITH JPL AND WITH NASA IN GENERAL. A SPECIAL THANKS IS OWED TO THE 24-HOUR-A-DAY EFFORT BY FIELD SERVICE, TO THE COMPETENT FIELD SERVICE ENGINEERS INSURING A FLAWLESS OPERATION, AND TO THE FIELD SERVICE DISTRICT MANAGER, AGGIE RUCKER, WHO TOOK ON THE RISK AND RSPONSIBILITY. THANK YOU ALL! Distribution Deleted
858.10		QUARK::LIONEL	Free advice is worth every cent	`Sat Sep 09 1989 17:04`	5
	I have also seen a rebuttal that refutes the claim that "all" the image processing was done on a VAX. Instead, most of it was said to have been done on a Hypercube. This is much more believable. Steve
858.11	Not the highest performance platform, but not so far-fetched	HYDRA::ECKERT	Jerry Eckert	`Sat Sep 09 1989 21:46`	11
	re .10 The Hypercube and other parallel processors have higher performance than VAX processors, but there's quite a bit of image processing software available for VAX/VMS systems because much of the academic work in image processing in the late 70s and early-to-mid 80s was done on VAX processors. Most of the work of Haralick, et al. at Virginia Tech was made commercially available as part of a software package called GIPSY. If the VAX-based software was never ported to other platforms, it's conceivable to me that JPL might still be using VAX systems for image processing.
858.12		STAR::HUGHES		`Mon Sep 11 1989 16:33`	10
	I posted the rebuttal in the space conference. The geology team were definitely using a HyperCube for the Triton images, and were clearly impressed with the speed with which they could push the image data through. Maybe a nit, but that memo claimed 'all'. As an aside, I have now seen more copies of that thing than any of the chain letters and 'Little Buddy' letters that caused uproar in the past. This memo is definitely a candidate for the 1989 'biggest waste of network bandwidth' award. gary
858.13		HANNAH::LEICHTERJ	Jerry Leichter	`Mon Sep 11 1989 23:34`	26
	I've been trying to find an appropriate place to post the following message since it appeared on INFO-VAX two weeks ago. -- Jerry From: IN%"mailrus!sharkey!atanasoff!atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu!hascall@tut.cis.ohio-state.EDU" 25-AUG-1989 10:29:25.55 To: info-vax@kl.sri.COM CC: Subj: Anyone else see the Neptunian VAXen? I was watching the NASA/JPL feed last night (wow!). During one "Voyager Update" they had a little counter showing the seconds to closest approach: 00:00:05 00:00:04 00:00:03 00:00:02 00:00:01 17-NOV-1858 Oh well! :-) John Hascall ISU Comp Center "Have your people call my people and we'll do lunch by the pool." ;-)
858.14		LESLIE::LESLIE		`Tue Sep 12 1989 08:03`	1
	It got around....
858.15		WMOIS::FULTI		`Tue Sep 12 1989 12:21`	5
	re: .13 Thats priceless! (-: - George