When We Landed on the Moon

[DavidDvorkin]

Five years and five days ago, for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, I published a short memoir of my time working at NASA on the Apollo program, titled "When We Landed on the Moon".

It's not the catchiest title, but it is much snazzier than the more descriptive title "How I Worked at a Desk at NASA During Apollo Writing Fortran Code and Entering Lots of Data on Punch Cards and Poring over Piles of Computer Printout".

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1080633405/

[lapfog_1]

1. Thank You for your service

I loved my time at NASA... from 1989 to 1999.

I would have loved to been at NASA during the Apollo years, some of my co-workers would tell stories of working there in those days.

My time at NASA was bracketed by the shuttle disasters...

BTW, when you were entering data on punch cards, did you have the oh26 or the oh29? ( I stated writing Fortran around 1970 while I was in middle school, a bit unusual for a kid at that time ).

I remember working at NASA Ames, bldg 258... many times until late at night... walking to my car and looking up at the moon hanging in the sky... and I would say to myself... I work at the agency that put a person on the moon... and feeling a little sad and very proud. A little sad because we gave up the moon. But very proud that we actually did it. Well, that YOU did it.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. I worked in Building 30

I had forgotten those two keypunch machine model numbers. I no longer remember the difference betweem them, but I seem to remember that the 029 had some advantages, and there few of them there at the time.