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Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA
Experience
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- - Chapter Five -
- - From Sequencers to Computers:
Exploring the Moon and the Inner Planets -
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- On to the outer
planets
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- [170] Experience and
the appreciation of the flexibility of computer processors are the
legacy of the computer systems development for the inner planet
probes. Consistent and detailed documentation, simple, reliable,
and reusable hardware designs, and the practice of many missions
contributed to the later and continuing success of Voyager. Just
as management experience gained during Apollo applied to the
shuttle, JPL's success with Viking made the concurrent development
of Voyager and Galileo easier. People like Samuel Deese, who
gained practical experience in the 1960s, led subsystem management
in the 1970s. Viking's Wayne Kohl went on to Galileo after the
Mars landings in a position similar to the one he held on the
former project. Both Voyager and Galileo are better projects
because of the continuity of techniques and personnel.
