SPACE: An Old Frontier?

Circa 2008 I did the "VIP" tour here at NASA. ("Here" = Houston. Anyone can take this tour; you just pay something like $80 for the tour instead of the normal $15 or whatever it is.) You get a lot more access, see a lot of the real work going on behind the scenes, eat with the engineers and astronauts, go inside the old mission control room made famous in Apollo 13, where you can sit and play at the same consoles, etc.

We were lucky in that a shuttle was in space while we were there. We were watching the mission control guys do their thing and I noticed among the wall of monitors a smallish area with a black screen and green hex characters. It looked a lot like the picture below.

I asked what it was and the guy said, "We call that the scratch pad. It's a live mirror of the terminal on the shuttle. When the astronauts enter a command, we watch and double-check it before they press Enter."

"But why is it in hex?" I said. (After all, even the vast majority of multi-decade nerds like me have never needed to enter any kind of computer command in hex, aka hexadecimal. Yes, digital forensicators of course still encounter these strange looking building blocks of data, but way behind the scenes where the non-nerds dare not tread. Not as a way to tell a computer to PRINT, for example, or COPY something. We were beyond all that a long time ago.)

"They enter the commands in hex," the NASA guy said.

"For what system?"

"The main flight computer."

"Sorry, we're still not communicating, because I know we don't have astronauts up there entering flight commands in hex. So what--"

"Yes, we do."

"As in the flight computer? You're telling me that if shuttle astronauts need to change something in their flight plan, they're doing it on the fly, in hex?"

"Yes."

"Uh...why?"

"We still use the Apollo flight control software."

I laughed. "No, you don't. You're pulling my leg."

"Yes. We. Do." The look on Mr. Man's face made it clear that he pulls no legs.

After taking a few moments to compose myself (close my mouth that was hanging open), I said, "That's unbelievable. Why would we still be using forty-year-old software?"

"Because it's the greatest and most stable piece of software ever written, to this day."

Later in the tour, we got to see a cutout of part of a shuttle, the part that contained the racks of computer equipment. They looked ancient because, you guessed it, it was Apollo-era equipment. Racks stacked with row after row after row of big clunky metal boxes and contraptions. Looking at an array of gear perhaps six feet long and four feet high, I learned that this was the still-in-use configuration of "memory." I don't recall the exact amount of memory this conglomeration of iron contained, but it was something stunning, like eight megabytes. (That smartphone in your hand or your pocket contains hundreds of times that amount of memory.)

Yes, this is a true story. And no, I'm not misremembering my decades. It was almost certainly 2008, but definitely no earlier than 2007. I still find the idea of using such antiquated technology to have been a strange approach to flying around space so many years after the Apollo era. But there's probably also a good life lesson tucked in there about the so-called greatness of our knowledge today as compared to years past. The guys who wrote that software in the 1960s were using slide rules, not pre-written libraries of code like we have today. They were the giants upon whose shoulders today's software geniuses stand. Even if they don't know it.

*     *     *

Speaking of space (ahem!), have you gotten your copy of Unallocated Space yet? It's made a bunch of the good lists at Amazon already, but it will be doing even better if you go get your copy right now! You can grab the Kindle edition right now for just $2.99. The print edition is literally days away from shipping, and the Audible edition is in production. It's being voiced by the same stellar narrator who did Seven Unholy Days, William Salyers, a major talent in the world of people with great voices. As a teaser, check out the first chapter below. It's gonna be good!

The Projectionist: Chapter 14

Sorry for the long wait, folks. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 14

THEN

Alice embraced unconventionality. She was odd. Knew it. Didn't care. So when something weirded her out? It was really weird. She stared at Mister Dan.

"Don't look at me like that," he said.

"I...well, I...it's just that--"

"Do you trust me?" he said.

She nodded.

"You've been hanging out here since you were what, ten?"

"Sounds right."

"And have I ever lied to you?"

"I don't think so."

Mister Dan cocked his head, then said, "Good enough. Have I ever treated you like you were some dumb kid?"

That one was easy. "No, Mister Dan."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"So, six years. I haven't lied to you. I haven't treated you like a kid who don't know nothing. Right?"

"Right."

"Don't that get me a little trust?"

She nodded again.

"Then take the book." He held it out to her.

Alice reached out and took it. She had never seen a book like it. Was it even a book? It was shaped like one, but the cover was metal, with a lot of fancy engraving. And gosh, it was so heavy! She lugged it to the workbench and laid it down as gently as she could, but it still hit with a thud.

She lightly drew her fingers across the cover, feeling the intricate designs of swirls and flourishes. Although it looked very old, the metal was bright and untarnished. "Is this gold?" she said.

Dan shrugged. "Never gave it much mind and it sure ain't something I'd go carting around for opinions."

"If it's gold, it would be worth a fortune, wouldn't it?"

He leaned toward her and spoke softly. "Alice, no matter what kind of metal it is, this book is worth more than a trainload of gold."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Back in the day, this place showed silent pictures. Since the movies didn't have sound of their own, a piano player would play the music that came with the movie. And even after the shows got sound, that old piano sat in its spot on the left side of the auditorium for dang near thirty years. When they remodeled the place about ten years ago, they asked if I wanted the piano. I said sure and got a few buddies and a pickup truck and we hauled it to my house."

"Can you play piano?" Alice said.

Dan smiled and scratched at his chin. "Nope, thought I'd teach myself but that didn't work out so good. To begin with, the thing was so out of tune that it sounded like some kind of sick animal. I hired a fellow to come tune it up and when he opened it up, the book was inside."

"It's beautiful. But what makes you think it has some kind of magical powers?"

He shook his head. "I don't think, Alice." He tapped his head with a finger. "I know."

"How?"

"Open it."

She lifted the heavy cover and flipped it gently to the side. She looked at the first page. Looked at Mister Dan with her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. Looked back to the book. On the page, beautifully printed in bright silver ink, was the following:

MAGIC ENDURES. LOVE TRIUMPHS. A CHRONICLE OF ADVENTURE.

Directly beneath the printed line was a handwritten name: Alice Renee Pendergast. Her name. Her handwriting.

Will the third time be the charm?

Tonight will be the third consecutive movie night for me and my faithful movie companion, and I'm hoping it will indeed be the charm. Night before last, we saw this gem.

How was it, you ask? Uh...well...in the words of Grumpy Cat:  NO. Unless, of course, you happen to love convoluted mashed-up storylines that flit in and out of reality and dreams and hypnotic trances and such. If you love those, you might enjoy it. (And as we say in Mississippi, bless your little heart.) Two stars, and they are dim stars at that.

Certain that our movie prowess was such that we couldn't possibly choose poorly two nights in a row, last night we grabbed our hot dogs and Cokes from the concession stand and headed into the darkened room for another cinematic adventure.

To be fair, it's been nearly 24 hours and I still can't tell you how I feel about this one. It felt like two movies. Unfortunately, the two movies didn't particularly complement each other. Or themselves. It's one of those that leaves you with the question "HUH?" as you're walking out the door. So although I've been as yet unable to come up with a star rating, I can sum up my feelings about it thusly:

Please let tonight break this ugly streak, because I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. I'll report back later on whether the third time is really the charm, or just a bunch of hooey.

Post-Oblivion update:  Okay, third time was the charm. I give this one 4 stars and recommend it. There were a few loose story threads hanging in my mind at the end, but it's very entertaining, well acted, and visually nice.