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from the kids-ask-'what-is-a-sliderule'? dept.
Ars Technica has a story and a link to the trailer of an upcoming movie, Hidden Figures which is due in theaters on Friday, January 13, 2017.
This movie has everything that a nerd could possibly desire: spaceships, astronauts, and a group of brilliant mathematicians who made NASA's Apollo mission possible.
Hidden Figures focuses on the achievements of Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji Henson from Person of Interest and Empire), winner of the 2015 National Medal of Freedom. Johnson, now retired, was a mathematician at NASA whose work helped plot the trajectories of orbiting spacecraft. The movie is your classic "nerd genius makes good" tale, as teachers discover the young Johnson's incredible math skills that eventually led to her meteoric rise, including college at the age of 15. She was so brilliant that NASA hired her out of graduate school in the 1950s—even though she lived at a time when black women were rarely welcomed into the science and engineering professions.
[...] As anyone who has ever watched NASA TV during a Mars landing knows, a spaceship is only as good as its makers. There is intense drama going on behind the scenes during every flight and landing, and that's why Hidden Figures looks like such a great ride. The movie hits theaters on January 13, 2017.
I am struggling to fathom having to perform manual calculations of orbital trajectories all day — with nothing more than paper, pencil, and a slide rule — and knowing that if you make an error, there's a good chance something is going to go BOOM and probably take some lives with it. Gives fresh meaning to the term meeting a deadline.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 16 2016, @07:26PM
It may not go boom. And lives might not be lost in a single instant. There might slowly come the realization that lives will be lost. Then a period while people try in vain to find a solution. And who was to blame.
The slow, dawning realization that due to sign error your spacecraft is not only going to miss the moon but you now have a one way ticket for a tour of the rest of the solar system as you slowly leave it. Or at least a week long tour anyway. Does anyone know what they would run out of first?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 16 2016, @09:00PM
It would take a lot of delta-V to leave the solar system.
A more likely error is to end up in permanent or very long lived orbit of something. Earth. Moon. Or Sun.
Or on a collision course with one of those.
A sign error? How about two transposed digits?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jelizondo on Wednesday August 17 2016, @12:40AM
Options... real fast.