Desert Island Column: Marooned on Mars: Mind-Spinning Books for Software Engineers
by William J. ClanceyChief Scientist, Human-Centered ComputingNASA/Ames Research CenterMoffett Field, CA 94035 (*)(*) On leave from the Institute for Human-Machine Cognition, Universityof West Florida, Pensacola.To appear in the Automated Software Engineering Journal, published byKluwer Academic Publishers, in Volume 7, year 2000I've just arrived on Mars, with 500 days before the next return shuttle.Fortunately, we have email and internet access to Earth (the line is fast,but there's a twenty minute delay on average, almost like time-sharing inthe 70s). My powerbook fits fine on my lap, but slouching on thehabitat's long couch, I prefer holding a book in my hands, settling downwith gleeful anticipation with a warm drink nearby (it's -70c today). So Ibrought along an armload of books, some for reference, some to read andstudy again, and others to share with the next generation, as we build ourcolony. All are mind-spinning, just what we need for opening a new worldwith new ways of thinking.To start, I brought along Burrough's (1998) Dragonfly: NASA and theCrisis Aboard MIR (New York: HarperCollins Publishers), the story of theRussian-American misadventures on MIR. An expose with almostembarrassing detail about the inner-workings of Johnson Space Center inHouston, this book is best read with the JSC organization chart in hand.Here's the real world of engineering and life in extreme environments. Itmakes most other accounts of "requirements analysis" appear glib andsimplistic. The book vividly portrays the sometimes harrowingexperiences of the American astronauts in the web of Russianinterpersonal relations and literally in the web of MIR's wiring. Burrough'sexposition reveals how handling bureaucratic procedures and bulkyfacilities is as much a matter of moxie and goodwill as technical capability.Lessons from MIR showed NASA that getting to Mars required a differentview of knowledge and improvisation--long-duration missions are not at