In 1990, I was an engineer working at the Space Sciences Division of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. We were building a payload containing several scientific instruments designed to measure airglow in the upper atmosphere. The payload was to be mounted and flown on the Earth side of polar orbiting NOAA TIROS satellite.
Spacecraft design and development is somewhat unique. There is little margin for error, so lots and lots of testing is conducted to make sure everything works. Of course, this still doesn’t uncover all problems, as many spectacular spacecraft disasters have illustrated. I got involved in the project at about the mid point in development. Many of the major components were in fabrication and the flight software was already complete. There was little in terms of ground testing software, much of this testing was done by hand. This was not a large complex instrument, but it still required as long as three hours to fully test everything.
During the winter of 1990, there was a little down time. I had this crazy idea of automating most, if not all of the testing of our instrument. Armed with a wire wrap gun, an ISA bus prototype board, and Turbo C 2.0, I started working on the ground support interface board and software. The interface board connected the ground support equipment to an IBM PC/AT with 1 MB of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive. For testing automation, I developed a testing script language and compiler/runtime environment to execute test scripts.
Due to complications beyond our control, the experiment lost its ride on the particular NOAA satellite for which it was scheduled. The instrument, ground support equipment, and the PC/AT with all the software was packed up and placed in storage. The hope was that someday, another ride would come along and the instrument might be resurrected.
Last week, after nearly 17 years, I received an email from one of the remaining scientists on the project. It appears there is an opportunity to mount the instrument onto the International Space Station. It will be flown on a Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle and deployed on the Experiment Module Exposed Facility.
From what I was told, the instrument, ground support equipment and that old IBM PC/AT were brought out of storage and unpacked. They fired up the PC and surprisingly it booted up. The next day, when the PC was powered on again, the hard drive spun briefly, and then ground to a halt. It failed completely. Apparently, there was no possibility of recovery.
Fortunately, there were some 5 1/4 floppy disks lying around with some backups of some of the software. Oddly enough, I also kept copies of some of it also, as it was one of the first, significant projects I worked on. The floppies were still readable after all those years.
Finding a PC that could accept an ISA board was a minor challenge, and the original DOS had to be replaced with FreeDOS. Turbo C 2.01 is now freely available, which is a big help. It sounds crazy, but it just might work…
I’ve been myopic since high school and I’ve never cared for glasses. Contacts are a little more convenient, but they have their drawbacks as well. Several friends have taken the lasik plunge, so I went for it.
I chose to schedule the procedure on a Wednesday afternoon. It’s really not a big deal, but I figured that Mondays are usually weekend recovery time. Who knows what level of binge drinking the doctor might have endured a day earlier. Fridays were also ruled out as most people want to get out early. Would you want to be the patient who held up happy hour?
I was a little lucky as there were few patients that day. Two optometrists were available to independently check my prescription. They came up with the same results, which was encouraging. I have some astigmatism in my left eye, which they wanted be sure I was OK with the correction. I guess some people might find it disorienting. I chose to have both eyes corrected. Monovision affects depth perception, which is important for pilots.
I couldn’t have asked for a better opthomolagist. He was very professional and personable. He assured me that if he felt there was any risk to my vision he would not even touch my eyes. Fortunately, I was a middle of the road case, so there were no worries. Still, just prior to the procedure, I felt compelled to ask if the doctor felt good and if he slept well the night before. Both answers were in the affirmative, so the show was on.
The procedure is really like science fiction, almost drive-thru in terms of efficiency. It takes only a few minutes and is largely painless. There is some discomfort when the doctor places the vacuum ring on your eyeball to hold it still. It’s just on the threshold of pain. The microkeratome cut is completely painless, I heard a brief buzzing and that’s it. The laser keratectomy is also painless, it takes only 30 seconds or so and smells like burning hair.
The recovery seems to vary quite a bit. Some patients feel a little discomfort, others find it almost painful. I was in the latter category. By the time I got home, my eyes were really tearing up as the topical anesthetic wore off. At the peak it felt like soap in my eyes. I should have taken the Tylenol I was given earlier. After a four hour nap, I was fine, with only minor discomfort.
Visual acuity comes and goes as the cornea heals. The variation can continue up to three months until vision stabilizes. After a few weeks, my vision was quite good, at least 20/20. Moisturizing drops really help, I even use the night time ointment.
I spoke with a customer service agent that had lasik surgery himself. Apparently, he was legally blind most of his life. His eyesight without glasses was 20/1400 and could only be corrected to about 20/240 with glasses. He couldn’t even drive in most states. After lasik, his eyesight was better than 20/20. Can you imagine going from legally blind to better than 20/20 vision in a matter of minutes? It had to have been a life changing experience. As you might expect, he was a strong proponent of lasik.
Overall, I am quite satisfied with the results. I would recommend it, if you don’t care for glasses or contacts. If you decide to do it, it’s probably a good idea to take a painkiller soon after the procedure to avoid any discomfort. Definitely use the rewetting drops often, your eyesight will be better sooner.
