263.366 - 2016 project and the Lunar Orbiter Project

every day in 2016, write a sentence or a paragraph or a poem that appreciates

the Lunar Orbiter Project

once upon a time it was 1965 and I was fresh out of college and in my first professional job.  the Boeing Company had hired me, and my boss tried to find a place in his group for an "engineer" who had a physics degree and lots of mathematics courses.  somehow my boss put me to work on the Lunar Orbiter program.  it was an inspired choice or decision.  the Lunar Orbiter Project needed an "engineer" to do some programming work then to simulate data from a spacecraft flying to the moon.  the simulated data would help train the flight team for what they'd see during the mission.  we had the tools - a computer and a program that was supposed to work on it - but no one knew what to do.  in some ways it was an ideal task for a new "engineer" at the Boeing Company, or in the then-new world of aerospace engineering.  "here's a bunch of parts.  this is what the machine is supposed to do.  now build that machine and prove it works."  damn!  count me in!  "oh, and while you're at it, learn how to work with other 'engineers'."  yeah, yeah.  (I need to explain my term "engineers".  on my planet, there are engineers, people with engineering degrees who take engineering jobs and get an engineering license and become real licensed engineers.  they sometimes become partners in an engineering firm.  they are not "engineers".  a lot of us get engineering degrees or related degrees and take engineering jobs with no intention of working toward a license.  the world in the United States since World War II has had plenty of jobs for us "engineers" who do lots of interesting and useful work and never become real engineers.  that's how it is on my planet.  on your planet, you may not need that distinction, nor find it useful.)  but back to Lunar Orbiter.  I did sorta learn how to work with others - damn!  I resisted! - and I did assemble the machine, and it did work.  as a reward I got to help prepare the simulated data for training before each of all five flights, and I got to work on each flight team, helping track the spacecraft.  oh damn!  oh damn!  it was like having a job in a science fiction book!  and it led to other jobs in aerospace engineering, and in many ways it led to my becoming a poet.  but those are other stories for another time.  thank you, Lunar Orbiter, for starting a wonderful part of my life.