Student Helps Design Programs For Space Shuttle Computers

While most students use computers to play "dungeons" or to finish Nat Sci 110 projects, Winthrop House's Mike A. Halem '81 used them to help launch the space shuttle Columbia.

The Columbia, scheduled to be launched from Cape Canaveral this morning, uses five launch support systems that Halem helped Pan American World Airways, the Kennedy Space Center's contractor, develop.

Soon after he began working for Pan Am three summers ago, he became "an idea man" for the design of computer graphics for the lift-off's emergency systems and the shuttle's transmitted information.

"Mike was in on the early conceptual designs that brought our systems together in a color-graphic display," James R. Bonner, manager for telemetry and data systems at Pan Am, said yesterday.

Info for Pilots

Halem said four of his systems that will play an integral role in Columbia's first 17 minutes of flight. One is a computer color graphic display inside the T-38 chase planes, vehicles used to photograph the lift-off and aid the shuttle's pilots in chase of emergency. The display will inform the chase pilots of the shuttle's location and transmit vector information to them in a situation that would require their intervention.

One of Halem's color graphic terminals "is designed to play information from the shuttle in a format that is easiest for the ground controller to read," he said. If either the shuttle or the fuel tanks go astray and threaten to land in populated areas, "my display will light up and warn the controllers" who may then elect to destroy them, he added.

His other two displays will inform the launch-site superintendent of the radar switching system's operation and the site's conditions.

Prestige in Space

Halem said a few of his systems will not be used because "some of them are only for emergencies." He added that the United States will "be careful about a mission of such national prestige."

Since using how to learn computers at age 13 in a program at the University of Flordia, Halem said that most of his knowledge has been self-taught, partially because "Harvard's computer classes are not very interesting."

Halem has worked for Pan Am for the last three summers.

"We don't hire many students. We just pick the cream-of-the-crop type who can contribute to our program," Bonner said, adding, "During the job interview it became apparent that Mike was an extraordinary student."

A physics major, Halem is currently researching "nuclear acoustic resonance" with Robert V. Pound, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics. "We should be the first in the world to find the resonance we're looking for," Halem said.

In accordance with his desire to "go into business related to high technology," Halem is starting his own business this summer that will deal in computer graphics and systems analysis. He said "the company should be profitable before the end of the summer."

"Mike's displays will be used on other missions," Bonner said. Halem said, "Lots of the systems I've developed have application above and beyond the shuttle. They'll probably be used for the next 20 years."