Comments on: Memoirs of a Space Engineer

Memoirs of a Space Engineer

troy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:44:36 -0800

Memoirs of an [Australian] Space Engineer is a too-short collection of several old-school engineering stories.

Mr. Rickard passed away earlier this decade from complications related to the bone marrow cancer caused by his encounter with highly radioactive Cobalt 60 in what is known as the "Maralinga Cobalt 60 incident". He also was the creator of the ABC logo.

By: troy

troy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:49:27 -0800

The web archive has more directly from Mr Rickard's personal home page, if you are interested.

By: DMan

DMan — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:07:43 -0800

That was an awesome link, thanks. I really like stories like this, from the earlier age of computers when there wasn't a book or standard policy for everything.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:50:22 -0800

Nerdgasm. Thank you.

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:22:54 -0800

There are some great stories in that "more" link.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:49:31 -0800

Great post troy. I, like most Australians (I hope), have heard about Maralinga but this really brings it home. Also, from the "Maralinga Cobalt 60 incident" link the standard specimen collection container (Dr Pat tobacco tins.....) and A number of scoops were fabricated by affixing jam tins onto long wooden handles I can just imagine the conversation: British Government Official (BGO): These Aussie chaps we've got doing the Cobalt 60 collecting are complaining about blisters and skin peeling off or some such nonsense. Australian Health Physics Group (AHP): Well, it's not just one or two, they are all displaying symptoms of radiation exposure. BGO: Confounded nuisance. What's to be done? AHP: Well I suppose we could put some safeguards and procedures in place and let the boys know what they're dealing with. BGO: Are you mad? This could become a major embarrassment for our government if it became public. AHP: Okay, maybe we could rig something up to keep them safe. BGO: Such as? We're on a budget you know. AHP: I've got an idea. You know how the men are picking up Cobalt 60 and putting it in tobacco tins, maybe we could rig up something out of all the jam tins we've got lying around. BGO: Sounds good, I like the cut of your jib, carry on. AHP: We could cut them up so that they form scoops and attach them to long wooden handles. That way our boys would be at arms length. BGO: Excellent idea. Go to it. AHP: No worries mate.

By: fatllama

fatllama — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:21:19 -0800

Ya'll should rent The Dish this weekend.

By: michswiss

michswiss — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 06:38:30 -0800

I read through each of them. It was light on detail but really brought back the way I used to think about technical problems. As fun.

By: speug

speug — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:12:45 -0800

For many of us those were the best of times - great post!

By: Xezlec

Xezlec — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:38:46 -0800

I can't even believe this! From the "Maralinga Cobalt 60 incident" link: The presence of the Cobalt 60 at the Tadje site had not been advised to the AHP group, but Prof Sir E Titterton, Chairman, Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee (AWTSC), HAD been advised prior to the test of the presence of Cobalt 60. He chose not to pass on the information to the AHP group. "When asked why he did not pass on to Turner the information about the cobalt 60, Titterton said they wanted '...to give Harry [Turner] and his workers a bit of a test'...". "OK, boys, get out your #2 pencils. But watch out! One question wrong and you die a horrible death." What a sweetheart!

By: Pinback

Pinback — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:16:57 -0800

As someone who, as an apprentice, once had to trace undocumented wiring through a whole suite of ARF switchgear - and, as a senior tech, once had to trace a single green wire in a totally green wiring loom through some S12 - I suspect the JPL engineer in the "Undetected Error" story did his apprenticeship at Ericsson, and finished his career at Alcatel... Bastard ;-)

By: Wolof

Wolof — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:51:20 -0800

Oddly enough, my father is a retired Australian space engineer who worked at Woomera (although for ELDO rather than the US) and was also at the Maralinga tests.

By: markr

markr — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:48:09 -0800

Great post. For those who haven't looked through the archive of Rickard's homepage, some of the stories are repeats of those on the ABC page, but there are one or two unique ones. I remember seeing a brief bit of footage of Rickard demonstrating how he designed the ABC logo. With him sitting there with a CRO and feeding two sine wave into it and tuning the x and y axes to display the logo. I wish it was up on the net somewhere.