Jeane Ryan - April 10, 1996
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"Skiing and Flowcharts" Jeane Ryan - April 10, 1996 |
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The Ryans are a HUBBLE family as both Joe and I work on the Hubble Space Telescope
project at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Also our children Kelly,
Susan and Andrew have grown up with Hubble exposure for the last twenty years as Joe
worked first on individual instrument development, then on the integration of instruments,
mirror, solar arrays and all other parts to actually build the telescope and now on the
Servicing Missions.
Hubble took us as a family to California in 1985 when only Joe worked on the project.
He was assigned to Lockheed Missiles and Space Incorporated, Sunnyvale, California as the
Government On-Site Director. We lived in California for almost three years. While in
California we became more avid skiers and fell in love with the Lake Tahoe ski areas.
Early in 1996 we decided to take our holiday break from Hubble to ski. As both Kelly
and Susan live out in the San Francisco Bay area and Andrew had lived out in the Lake
Tahoe area last spring, Lake Tahoe seemed to be the perfect choice.
We were really lucky that our ski trip coincided with Comet Hyakutake's closest
approach to Earth. It would be missing Earth by ONLY 9 million miles. It was discovered
by and named for the Japanese amateur astronomer, Yuji Hyakutake (pronounced "yah-koo-tah-kay".
We drove up the Mt. Rose road from the rented Mountain Shadows condo to a scenic
overlook at about 7,500 feet altitude. We parked the car and got out to stare up at the
night sky.
We knew the comet was to be very near the Big Dipper, an easily spotted constellation.
There were so many stars in the sky that it was difficult to find the Big Dipper! It was,
however, not difficult at all to find the comet. Hyakutake and its tail were easily
spotted as it was the next largest item in the sky besides the moon. The comet appeared
brighter and the tail longer when we saw it from the corner of our eyes rather than from
straight on. The main head of the comet was thumb size and the tail about six inches
long. It was a spectacular sight to behold.
Here we were many miles from the HUBBLE project, on a ski vacation in the mountains
and our thoughts turned to HUBBLE. We thought of ourselves here on Earth almost on top of
a mountain looking at the comet and wondered what HUBBLE was seeing actually being up
there amongst the stars itself.
Seeing this comet prompted many questions:
The Systems Verification Group is on stand-by to run the Servicing Mission Ground
Tests (SMGTs) as soon as the hardware is delivered and tested. We handle the work on
these tests for Al Vernacchio who is the Servicing Mission System Engineer (SMSE) Manager
for the Government. When a problem occurs during the test it is documented as a Test or
Simulation Anomaly Report (TSAR).
Another SVG member, Francine Crum, has been working on creating a World Wide Web (WWW)
Online TSAR creation and tracking system. A user that has discovered a problem during the
test is able to enter the problem into this system. Al, the SMSE is able to assign it to
a System Engineer to figure out why the problem occurred and determine what needs to be
done to correct the problem.
At the present time I am working on diagramming the process flow for the WWW Online
TSAR System. When software is designed, the different steps taken must be very detailed
and explicit. The list of these steps and what must be done in each are called software
"requirements".
To make the flowchart, I am using a program called MacDraw Pro to make diamonds
(decision boxes) and rectangles (actions taken boxes) which are connected by arrows.
The boxes are annotated with the YES/NO decisions being made and the actions being taken.
It is a challenging task as you have to think very logically, step-by-step to make sure
that the software system is designed to handle everything and once created actually does
what it was designed to do.
Try your hand at making a flowchart. Make your flowchart illustrate the making and
eating of an ice cream sundae. Use a rectangular box for an action taken and a diamond
box for a decision box. For example, to get ready to make the sundae, you might use an
action box to indicate opening the cupboard, finding a dish and spoon, and various other
tasks that require taking an action. You might use a decision box to determine what
flavor ice cream or syrup you want. For example, one decision box might read "Do you want
Chocolate Ice Cream?" Draw an arrow from one point of the diamond and state YES; then
draw an action box that lists the actions if chocolate is selected. Also draw an arrow
with NO and list what would happen if chocolate wasn't selected.
The flow diagrams that I have produced will be reviewed by other people who will be
using the system and the SVG person who is doing the system programming. Ask a friend of
yours to review your Ice Cream Sundae Making flow diagram. Of course you could apply this
to any task that might interest you. This is often done for a variety of tasks, like
programming a computerized robot Just remember that the computer program must describe
"EVERYTHING" that must be done. Your flow chart should reflect "EVERYTHING" as well.
In addition I am reviewing, editing and expanding on the User Guide that is being
written to tell a new user how to use the TSAR system. Clarifying the requirements,
creating flow diagrams, actually testing the software program (trying to break it) and
writing the User Guide are what I do in my job working with the SVG group.
I think it is BIG time FUN. |
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