After many months of  patient negotiation on the part of many people we were at last able to welcome Prof  Patrick H. Stakem to England and to Sheffield to give a presentation about the practical and theoretical considerations of the use of GNU/Linux on various space platforms for the use of space exploration and day to day tasks such as the kind of thing which routinely takes place over our own heads every day of the week.   This was sponsored by the Institution of Electrical Engineers.  We would like to thank them for their help and support.  Without them none of this would have taken place.

The original plan was for Pat Stakem just to come along on his own but after his family found out that he was coming over here every single one of them wanted to join in just to see what England was like.  Fine by me and everyone else.  Great to meet more people and talk about their view of the world around us.  Strangely enough, I found myself on a flight to New York in July 2003 to visit people in New York.  This wasn't planned it just happened and so we thought we might as well make the most of it.  I decided to take the Acela Express from New York to Washington D.C to see how it compared with the Eurostar trip over to Paris and Brussels.  I thought this was the best way to visit Pat Stakem and family at their home in Laurel.  It's a good train service and probably better than fighting it out with airport security on the U.S domestic flights.   For a whole two hours I thought I was on the European rail system.  The trip to D.C. was just great .   After about a week I flew out to San Francisco and the Linux World Expo.  Sunny California.  Cycling around the Bay area and watching purple herons.  All in all it was a good experience.  Probably go back some time.

October finally came around and thankfully - after a great deal of hard work on everyone's part - Pat sent me the news that they were just leaving for the airport.  Then we lost him and his whole family !  Turns out that when they got over to the airport the pilot of the 747 that they were travelling on was suffering with food poisoning.  They had to wait a whole twelve hours for a new pilot to clock in.  After arriving at Heathrow they found themselves in the St Pancras area at around midnight.  No hotel.  We didn't know where they were and neither did they.     Fortunately they were able to find accommodation on the spot without too much trouble.  Meanwhile in Sheffield the local hotel owner was asking me where they were.  At last, on the day when the presentation was due to take place the whole family arrived and I was able to help Prof Stakem along to the road to the local university on the tram that runs around Sheffield.  

The crowd that turned up on the evening of the 2nd of October at the Adsetts Centre was quite a respectable one.  They were definitely interested in the use of GNU/Linux in space and  anything to do with it.  We even spotted some Chinese and Japanese people who looked as though they were suffering from some sort of jaw dropping experience.   In fact, most of us were very impressed that someone would travel all the way from Washington D.C. to give a presentation about some of the lesser known facts about engineering in space.  If you would like to view the lecture notes for this presentation please see the bottom of the page.  There's a link that you can click on to download an OpenOffice Impress presentation which works fine with an OpenOffice.org office suite and MS Office as well.

The presentation began with a few introductions and then Pat up stood up and introduced himself to the audience.  He explained that he was an electrical engineer who had taken his degree at Carnegie Melon University.  He started working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in about 1970 and he's been there ever since.  In his spare time he teaches at Loyola College.    Pat went on to give examples of the use of GNU/Linux with onboard space computers.  What happened in the past and now and what should take place at some time in the future.   His interest in computers started out at school and he has retained his interest in this kind of technology ever since. 

There are certain aspects of engineering in space that create a few constraints.  All hardware that goes into space has to be radiation hardened.  This makes any engineering project much more expensive.  There has to be a power source.  Mostly solar power.  Hard disks can't exist because rotating disks can't be put into spacecraft.  Only hardware solid state memory can be used in place of a hard disk.  Early computers of the 50's or 60's were much too heavy to put on spacecraft.  By the 1970's the ordinary computer was just about small enough to go on board a space vehicle.  In the present day the local solar system is fast becoming an integral part of the terrestrial internet.  Pat went on to explain that when it comes to sending computers into space the hardware is generally two to three generations behind the state of the art hardware of the sort that most people use at home or in the office.   A 386 computer is a good example of the kind of hardware that might be used for development of space based computing.  One of the problems that is to do with the use of Open Source software upstairs is a cultural problem to do with management policies.  Convincing other people that the use of GNU/Linux in space is a good idea can be an uphill battle.  A project was proposed by Pat Stakem back in 1999 which was partnered by NASA Goddard and the University of Surrey.  A study was made of the processors that are used in space.  It was quickly realised that GNU/Linux would support all of this hardware and so why not use GNU/Linux ?  Another fact that emerged was that networking on spacecraft was kind of clunky and old fashioned and also the almost non-existent file systems tend to be the kind of thing that you might find in a museum.  Compare this with the GNU/Linux IP stack and networking and the file systems that are available and you begin to realise that there is something of an advantage in the use of GNU/Linux.  Also the fact that you can re-use the libraries that make the software work.  Uploading updates and the control of hardware is also much better.  Even Java applications can be used on spacecraft.   Something like a 90% reduction in the raw volume of data transfer can be achieved in some cases.

A further development is the application of Don Becker's Beowulf project.  This would be ideal for a group of robotic spacecraft to work together around a distant planet or asteroid or other astronomical object.  Beowulf is extensively used in the Earth Sciences for analysis of geological data.  For example, spectral analysis of a planets atmosphere could be combined with analysis of geological data at the same time.  Beowulf is a really good way to get over the problem of very little computing power in the hardware on board a spacecraft.  With terrestrial based clusters enormous advantages can be found in the use of Beowulf software.  Just about any PC home based hardware can be used with Beowulf.  NASA have proven this to be so. They have been replacing expensive hardware with ordinary PC clusters which are slowly replacing - for example - $5 000 000 hardware with something that might cost as little as $5000.

All in all, GNU/Linux has to be part of the future of  space exploration in order to get away from the old fashioned stuff that's still spinning around upstairs.  It is highly likely that we will see more Free and Open Source software used in ground stations and on space platforms in the years to come.

Pat finished his talk with a question and answer session.  The questions asked reflected the quality of the individuals who came along to see him in action.  All of them wanted to ask serious questions and to listen to his wise words.

The following evening which was a Friday night I had the privilege of escorting the Stakem family to the local Crucible Theatre for a production of A  Midsummer Night's Dream.   A great time was had by all.  Dinner afterwards was a jolly affair.  We wandered over to the Trattoria Sorrento at Northfield Road, Crookes, Sheffield.  Luigi was helpful and efficient as he always is.   If only we could do this all of the time.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank Sheffield Hallam University for providing a venue for this presentation and for the funding provided by the Institution of Electrical Engineers which allowed us to provide some local people and other people who traveled a long way from home with a fascinating study of the use of GNU/Linux and other Open Source software in an environment which most of us will never encounter in our every day life.  Also, some of the people from our Linux User Group here in Sheffieldhelped out with organisation.  Not the least of our thanks go to Pat Stakem for putting up with us and also many thanks to his family for helping out and providing support when it was needed.  Pat Stakem mailed a final note to me when he got back to the States.  He asked me to include it with this page.  Here it is...

"Personal end-note

First, it is necessary to thank profusely Richard, the Sheffield Hallam University, and the Institution of Electrical Engineers for making my trip possible. I also appreciate their patience, as we waited for world events to settle down.  As Richard mentioned, my family tagged along, and it was our first trip to the UK. We did a day trip from Sheffield to York, and spent a few days in London. We got to Stonehenge, and many of  the London tourist sites. Important for me was the Science Museum in Kensington, where I was able to see Mr. Babbage's mechanical difference engines. We needed a lot more time to explore, but we saw and experienced a lot, and made a lot of friends."


Richard
Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society          
www.ras.org.uk
Founder of the Sheffield Linux User's Group
www.sheflug.co.uk