Microsoft's Charles Simonyi to be 1st Nerd in Space 234
Richard L. James writes "The BBC are reporting that Hungarian-born Charles Simonyi, a 58-year old Microsoft billionaire software engineer is set to become the first 'nerd in space' on board the Soyuz TMA-10 when the spacecraft launches on Thursday 09th March 2007. Charles oversaw the development of Multiplan, Word, and Excel among many other achievements. He has launched a website detailing the 3 goals he wishes to achieve on the trip: advance civilian spaceflight, assist space station research, and involve kids in space sciences. Jó szerencse pölö Charles!"
First nerd??? (Score:5, Informative)
science nerd (Score:5, Informative)
He still didn't have to put up a Flash 9 only website, though.
Re:Yuri Gagarin (Score:5, Informative)
No; he's not even the first geek in space this fall. [wikipedia.org]
According to The Fine Article, the "first nerd in space" moniker is actually Dr. Simonyi's speculation about himself, not just the mistake of some clueless reporter - in fact the reporter mentioned three previous nerdy space tourists. My mind boggles - surely before deciding to spend millions of dollars on this trip, Dr. Simonyi thought to learn a little about his predecessors?
Jó szerencse pölö Charles = ? (Score:5, Informative)
by a native hungarian in the early morning (so if I missed something obvious, it's early!).
Whoever cares to know (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Jó szerencse pölö Charles = ? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yuri Gagarin (Score:3, Informative)
Back on Vokhshod I. Alexei Leonov.
Re:Sooo..... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sooo..... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually they were aerospace engineers and test pilots. They may have also been fighter jocks (although some flew other types of aircraft) since that's about the only way to rack up time on high performance jets, but at the time of astronaut selection they were working as test pilots. Most (all?) of them had degrees in aerospace engineering. (Armstrong was accepted to MIT, but ended up attending a different college).
I wouldn't call them nerds, though.
Re:First nerd??? (Score:3, Informative)
Nerd = bad
Re:FYI (Score:3, Informative)
Re:first nerd in space? (Score:5, Informative)
The first American in space, Alan Shepard, had a Bachelor of Science from Annapolis.
Or take the first two men on the moon (please). Neil Armstrong had a Bachelor of Science from Purdue and a Master of Aeronautical Engineering from USC (and had been accepted at MIT). Buzz Aldrin majored in Science at West Point and eventually earned a PhD from MIT.
Jocks with slide rules. It happens.
KFG
He'll have a new job up there (Score:5, Informative)
The crew has a network of laptops running WinXP to do non-critical support tasks, chiefly email. While they work pretty well and generally can be maintained from Houston, the crew does spend a fair amount of time keeping them working. You can often hear tales of woe with the network interspersed with operational discussions on the space to ground audio.
For example, this is from the September 8, 2006 ISS status report posted at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=2199
Jeff's attempts yesterday to set up an Outlook email account for Soyuz taxi crewmember Anousheh Ansari were not successful. This is a repeat of a problem seen with previous email accounts for Soyuz taxi crewmembers. Plans are in work to give the SFP (Space Flight Participant) a regular ISS email account.
I have the feeling that he is going to be jokingly dubbed the "new on-site IT support" by the commander as soon as he arrives.
Re:First nerd??? (Score:4, Informative)
Bruce
Re:Oh come on Charles... (Score:2, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
Apparently if you've got something approaching serious money there isn't any reason you can't do all that and go for a joy ride.
KFG
Harrison Schmitt (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt [wikipedia.org]
He was a geologist from Cal Tech who got to check out lunar geology
up close up close and personal on the Apollo 17 mission.
That's *very* nerdy, in a *very* cool kind of way.
could you guys fix the hungarian text in the post? (Score:5, Informative)
I just wonder how the "pölö" part came into the sentence - as it's not a word in our language. The closest I can think of that it's the pronounciation of the abbreviation "pl.", which is short for "például" - meaning: "for example". I guess you guys asked someone: "How do I say Good Luck in Hungarian?", and the answer might have been: "Jó szerencse, pl." meaning: "For example: Jó szerencsét".
Ákos
a native Hungarian (speaker)
Re:Yuri Gagarin (Score:5, Informative)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't he the guy who developed the Hungarian notation (not that developing code-standards should lead to fame, fortune and grandeur, but just sayin')
Re:FYI (Score:3, Informative)
Though to be fair, there are a number of things Simonyi suggested that *aren't* like that -- he suggests 'w' for 'word', 'b' for 'byte', 'p' for 'pointer', and maybe a couple others. 'sz' (null-terminated string) is sorta in between; it doesn't provide much semantic information, but it does provide a little, because does 'char* x' point to a single character or a string?
Though even the ones that encode strict datatypes have a valuable heritage in BCPL, where there isn't typechecking.
BUZZ ALDRIN (Score:2, Informative)
Not sure if Joe Walker on X-15 flights 90 and 91 (which went past 100km in altitude) should be considered nerd, even with a Physics bachelors degree.
Not sure about the Soviet astronauts' backgrounds either, but judging from the technical school educations, I'd assume it's similar to the astronautics and aeronautics degrees. But they did not appear to have the graduate degree like Aldrin.
Nerd card revoked........ (Score:4, Informative)
Sputnic [sic] wasn't a dog. It was the first satelite [wikipedia.org] launched into space. Sputnik means satelite but also companion, or even better "co-traveller" in russian. Laika [wikipedia.org] was the first dog (living creature [not counting bacteria and the like clinging to the insides of satelites]) in space.
Back on subject, this here Charles is definitely not the first geek/nerd in space. It's a joke to try and take the title just because he's got som media dweebs to back his claim. All true geeks/nerds know the truth anyway..
Cheers!..
The first nerd tourist was Greg Olsen (Score:2, Informative)
He worked at RCA Laboratories the same time I did. I can testify that he is, indeed, a nerd.
Fred
Re:Yuri Gagarin (Score:3, Informative)
Yes he is. That's why they call it "hungarian notation". He also hasn't worked for Microsoft since 2002. Right now he's running a company called Intentional Software [intentionalsoftware.com].
Re:First nerd??? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First nerd??? (Score:3, Informative)
During her eight-day stay onboard the International Space Station, Ansari agreed to perform a series of experiments on behalf of the European Space Agency. She conducted four experiments [21], including:
* Researching the mechanisms behind anemia.
* How changes in muscles influence lower back pain.
* Consequences of space radiation on ISS crew members and different species of microbes that have made a home for themselves on the space station.
She also became the first person to publish a weblog from space.
Re:Jó szerencse pölö Charles = ? (Score:1, Informative)
Apparently, according to sztaki [sztaki.hu], pölö means "nerd". I'm not a native speaker (started learning a few months ago and am almost fluent), but I can certainly tell you that this is someone translating "Good Luck Nerd Charles" word-for-word in an attempt to sound "cultural"
Re:He invented Hungarian Notation (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, in case your interested. [slashdot.org]