Hello everybody!

I'm sending this to all I thought might be interested.  If you're not, 
tell me and I'll take you off of the list.

	Well, I have been at NASA for several days now and it has been
very intense.  I think that every day here is equivalent to about three
days everywhere else!  We wake up at 6:30 or earlier and arrive at Goddard
by 7:30.  After breakfast, I work in the lab until 5 or until there is a
meeting - lots of meetings and activities have been scheduled;  yesterday
we met with Joe Rothenberg, the director of Goddard; he's the guy that
managed the Hubble repair project, and is the pace-setter for the
restructuring of NASA presently occurring.  After work I come back to the
house and then have a "rap session" with the other students; we discuss
organizational matters and make up questions to ask the speakers we will
see.  I generally don't get to bed until midnight.  It's like this every
day; in the entire 50 days or so I'll be here, there is not a single
planned free day, although sometimes I have 4 or 6 hours free - but this
hasn't happened yet.  It is very taxing but I'm not really complaining
because it's really exciting.
	My project is called "remote instrument control" and the purpose
of it is to come up with a (mostly software) system that will allow us to
control almost anything; it is hoped that someday this software will
control the Hubble.  The test instrument is an infrared telescope
currently at the Amundsen-Scott south pole scientific station.  If all
goes well, we will be able to sit up here and get data without having to
go south.  In addition, the software will be flexible and self-configuring
so that new hardware modules can be installed with minimal expert
assistance, if any.
	This project is particularly interesting for me because I 
recently wrote a paper in which I concluded that just such a system was 
necessary - before I knew of this project.  Now I'm part of it, and may 
see it work someday.
	The building I work in is the site of control operations for many
of NASA's orbital missions - that means that just about every satellite,
including the ones used for ozone hole investigation and also the GOES
weather satellites, which are controlled from here.  I've been near the
control panels and seen labels on switches like "attitude adjustment -
port thrusters."  It's scary because I have this fear that I'll go crazy
and start pushing buttons before they can wrestle me to the ground. 
Luckily I don't work directly in that office.
	The computer installations which control the satellites are HUGE. 
There is a lot of ground support for each spacecraft; there is usually
some kind of heavily muscled computer like a power challenge connected to
custom hardware that actually does the controlling.  Data rates are
enormous; they can collect 7 gigabytes/day on some missions.  I haven't
figured out how they store all of it yet!
	I live in a house on the university of Maryland campus; most of 
our food and transportation is provided.  Living there is like standard 
dormitory life.
	Some speakers that I will meet in the next 21 days are: Carl
Sagan, Bill Gates, (Yes, THE one), Dan Goldin, the director of NASA, and I
will also meet a score of less famous but important scientists, engineers,
policy makers, astronauts, and various bigshots.  When I call them
"speakers" I don't mean lecturers in the usual sense; we sit down with
these people for one or two hours and converse with them, which gives us a
chance to ask them questions most people can't.  So far each person has
been a gold mine of knowledge.  Unfortunately, we won't get to spend much
time with Gates or Sagan - we are meeting them at a conference on mars
exploration; but we will still get to meet/speak with them for a little
while.
	I have already learned an incredible amount of stuff about the way 
things work in the space program; the value of this program (the NASA 
academy) is inestimable.  I can't imagine what I'll know in 9 weeks when 
I leave.

Ok, that's it for now!  See you later.

--Dan