A Customer Service Call to Mir - News Release
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg9586] A Customer Service Call to Mir - News Release
- From: News Releases <press>
- Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 01:40:53 -0500
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
---------- The following is the text from a Wolfram Research media release distributed on November 12, 1997, as part of our ongoing media relations program. NEWS RELEASE A Customer Service Call from Mir Champaign, Illinois-November 12, 1997-When the space station Mir's troubles were at their worst, you may have asked yourself, "Why don't they just call the Mir customer service hotline?" For one minor problem in the aftermath of the space collision, NASA did indeed call customer service, and they got fast results. The Mir space station consists of several modules flown into space individually and connected together in orbit. One of these modules, Spektr, contained instruments for observing Earth and served as living quarters for American astronauts. In June 1997, its occupant was Dr. Michael Foale, who shared Mir with Russian cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin. On June 25, the Spektr module was damaged when it collided with an unmanned supply vessel during testing of a new automated guidance system. The station depressurized, lost power, and the Spektr module was hurriedly sealed off-along with most of Foale's personal belongings-to prevent depressurization of the rest of Mir. Loaded onto Foale's now-inaccessible computer was an off-the-shelf technical computing software system called Mathematica=AE, which Foale has used for many years to perform calculations involving higher math. Thinking that Mathematica could shed some light on some of the tasks necessary to set Mir back in order, he asked that a backup of his hard drive be retrieved from his home and sent up to Mir on the next supply rocket. Installation onto the new computer, however, required a new password-and that meant a quick phone call to Wolfram Research, Inc., makers of Mathematica. The NASA ground crew contacted Allison Fry, a Customer Service representative at Wolfram Research, and Mathematica was soon up and running again in orbit. Back on Earth, Foale recently contacted Wolfram Research for a replacement CD for the one lost in Spektr, which this time was delivered to him without the use of a supply rocket. As for the rest of Mir's difficulties, perhaps the current crew wishes that more solutions were only a phone call away. Michael Foale has expressed an interest in presenting a keynote address at the 1998 International Mathematica User Conference, to be held in Chicago on June 18-21, 1998, in commemoration of Mathematica's tenth birthday. Wolfram Research is the world's leading developer of technical computing software. The company was founded by Stephen Wolfram in 1987 and released the first version of its flagship product, Mathematica, on June 23, 1988. Mathematica, the world's only fully integrated technical computing system, is relied on today by more than a million users worldwide in industry, government, and education. Mathematica Version 3 was released in the fall of 1996. Wolfram Research, Inc. is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. <center># # # </center>