Engineering Status Reports

For the past eight years, I have written a required monthly status report to another organization for my NASA contractor work. I have written my accomplishments and planned work in short, concise sentences, usually in numbered list format.

I was then notified by this organization that the writing rules had been changed substantially. The new rules prohibited bullet or numerical list format. Personal pronouns could no longer be used. The sentences must be varied to avoid beginning each with the subject. The writing had to be in paragraph format with three sentences per paragraph, and on and on. There were so many new rules that I did not even read all of them. I wondered if perhaps an English literature major had been given an administrative role and was projecting his or her frustrations by imposing Byzantine writing style rules upon myself and others in this technical community.

So I submitted the following status report, with slight edit changes to avoid disclosing any proprietary information. I refer to myself in third person as the “greybeard.”

The organization responded by instructing me to return to my previous, concise writing style for the status reports, exempting me from the new rules.

And I really did give a presentation to NASA engineers that included a slide about monkeys SLaMS_SCLV201_keynote_revA.ppt

– Tom Irvine

* * *

Significant Accomplishments:

Dynamics Engineering: A Call to Serve! Enlightened were the apprentices as the greybeard mentored them with this presentation at the SLaMS Early Career Community webinar meeting, March 27, calling upon them to share their knowledge and become themselves teachers of the rising generation, underscored with Seneca the Younger’s proverb Docendo discimus – Latin “by teaching, we learn.” Reciprocal altruism of Vervet monkeys! Blind Faults underneath the Los Angeles Basin! Dragons to be launched on towering SpaceX boosters powered by Merlin engines! Thus was the eclectic tutelage of that day.

The raw, ominous Zeus-like power of pyrotechnic shock pulses cutting through rocket joint metal, propagating through modules and threatening sensitive electronic parts mounted on circuit boards – such has been the forlorn of many a NASA engineer. To which challenge did the greybeard prepare shock, structural dynamics, fatigue and statistical energy analysis software and training materials as tools for discerning the energy’s spectral content.

Work Planned:

Gathered will be engineers at the NESC Joint GN&C TDT and L&D TDT F2F Meeting at MSFC – week of April 16, 2018, bringing opportunities of collaboration for the greybeard and his esteemed colleagues. New ideas will arise upon which the greybeard will muse, research and present new papers and methodologies, knowing that if he sees farther than others– it is because he stands on the shoulders of giants.

The response of mechanical components bending and flexing in multi-modes driven by the surging oscillations of pyrotechnic shock waves, the stresses pulling molecules apart, potentially inducing cracks which threaten both component and launch vehicle, for which the greybeard is preparing a presentation for the Aerospace Spacecraft and Launch Vehicle Dynamic Environments Workshop, El Segundo, CA, June 26-28, 2018 – this and more are the planned endeavors for the month of April.

Deliverables:

Matlab scripts, the tools for synthesizing acceleration time histories across a series of wavelets, the greybeard’s quest to numerically replicate the damage potential of powerful undulations which could break launch vehicle components and structure, will be conveyed to NASA engineers. Tutorials and slides with examples using the scripts will be provided, enabling these ladies and gentlemen to perform calculations of their own in service of America’s space program.

* * *

Here is the bullet version, with no literary allusions.

Significant Accomplishments:

1. Gave presentation “Dynamics Engineering: A Call to Serve!” to the NASA SLaMS Early Career Community via webinar meeting, March 27. Presentation included references to reciprocal altruism of Vervet monkeys and blind faults underneath the Los Angeles basin.
2. Writing avionics component FEA shock analysis software and tutorials for NASTRAN implementation.

Work Planned:

1. Preparation of structural dynamics & statistical energy analysis software & webinars.
2. Prepare presentation for the Aerospace Spacecraft and Launch Vehicle Dynamic Environments Workshop, El Segundo, CA, June 26-28, 2018. Presentation title is Avionics Component FEA Shock Analysis.
3. Participate in the NESC Joint GN&C TDT and L&D TDT F2F Meeting at MSFC.

Deliverables:

1. Webinar audio/visual presentation files.
2. Revised Matlab & Python GUI signal analysis packages with enhanced features.
3. Statistical energy analysis, structural dynamics, vibration fatigue software and tutorial papers.