floppo

[N96290]

Re: floppo

I am glad I was not the only one who had heard that about the HP41C and the shuttle. I do kind of remember the newsletter but the engineer who was into them has been gone for over 20 years and it has been a long time since I have seen anything of the calculator or any of the literature. I will have to keep my eyes open next time I am in the dungeon looking for some old information, it just might be stored away somewhere.

[Mack Dobkins]

Re: floppo

Here is a picture of HP 41C used on Space Shuttle missions (9 missions).

This is an HP-41C pocket calculator, manufactured by Hewlett-Packard, that has flown on nine Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s. NASA purchased it from a local store in Houston, and installed special software on it for each mission. Mission critical computing was still done by the Shuttle on-board computers, but pocket calculators found many other uses in space. This calculator could have performed critical re-entry calculations if the main computers failed.

This HP-41C was used by Astronaut Sally Ride and several other astronauts on a total of nine Shuttle missions.

Transferred from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Country of Origin
United States of America
Manufacturer
Hewlett Packard Corporation

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: floppo

That explains part of it for me. I didn't start working STS and ISS payload manifests until 2005! When the 41C was flown I was in Space Systems and Concepts Division working on Unmanned Interplanetary Exploration and Orbital Sensor Systems. The 41C was probably long gone by then.

I would still like to see the article if you find it. I love learning about the old systems and how they used them. Back in Apollo they could do a mission trajectory burn using nothing but the grids in the window and a stop watch! That was how they did the trajectory correction burn on Apollo 13. Not how they WANTED to do it, but the guys in "The Trench" were fantastic at doing trajectory work "on the fly".

Hank

[tcraft]

Re: floppo

pretty

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: floppo

Man, I remember those! Should we start posting photos of Flintlocks for us really old farts? ;-)