NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era

I highly recommend watching "Its Quieter in the Twilight" (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9rrxr) a cool documentary about the engineers still running voyager (a lot of them have been on it for decades)

	▲	SirFatty 12 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Video isn't there... but I found it on YT. https://youtu.be/RIP1p5gAoak?si=ftTEGYFJscXJPaJm
	▲	em-miyamoto 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Content not available. Any chance it wasn't like that 10 minutes ago?

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RagnarD 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's mind boggling that they didn't digitize every last scrap of paper around the project years ago, for starters.

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rbanffy an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> younger engineers often have the capability but not the inclination

Kids these days... Why would someone in their right mind think working on the Voyager project could damage their careers? You can work on new and fancy tools all you want to improve supporting tools, and it's still one of the coolest space missions active. Plus, it has a real end - at some point, support will be further reduced and the person will move on to another space exploration job, with the extra golden star of having been on the Voyager.

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glimshe 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I would go further... This project gives a rare opportunity for a young engineer to learn to build truly mission critical, resilient software while requiring complete, top to bottom understanding of the software and hardware stack.

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anthonj 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I am no longer a junior, but would have been upset to be tasked with refreshing the old historical obsolete laundry (no matter how sacred or distinguished), expecially when I already had experience delivering safety critical products packing much more modern technologies.

The opportunity they would be offering is not rare at all! The opportunity to research and design something truly new on the other way is very scarce.

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bombcar 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Even all that to the side, it lets you say you worked on the Voyager project!

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lexicality 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

If I'm reviewing CVs and I see that you worked at NASA on the Voyager code, you're getting an interview just so I can ask about it.

I wouldn't normally approve of CV driven development, but for this?!

	▲	xingped 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I agree, and I would think the same, but I also feel like many things I've been sold as "door openers" for interviews unfortunately tend to ultimately be things that no one cares about.

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tamimio 9 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Because software development back in the day wasn’t like how it’s now now, the charade so called software development now is a clown show: scrum, daily stand ups, open office style, tickets, tons of ci/cd BS, and of course, the wrangler aka PM and all politics involved, none of this existed like the cult it is now, I only had one experience in such environment and despite the effort I had to ask for some common sense, it was like insulting someone’s religion, “how dare you challenge the sacred methods that the silicone valley companies are using?!!”

Additionally, back in the day there was true ownership for the code you write, the code is owned by you not the company, and I know few old engineers that until now (they are retired) the companies still pay them for using their code they wrote while working there. That sense of ownership encourages you to tackle hard issues rather feeling like a machine spewing code for someone else’s business, I have seen some contracts too where the company will have ownership for anything you do while you are in the contract, including your personal projects on your own free time.