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A Day in the Life of Carol Davies
Wednesday, November 11, 1996
8:00 a.m.
I usually car pool to work, arriving at 7:45 a.m. However, today my colleague
has gone to the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) meeting mentioned below
and I traveled in alone, arriving at 8 a.m.
After two months of constant go, go on the X33 project (the shuttle
replacement), the project leaders have gone today to the PDR to present
our work. This will give me a chance to clean up the files on my computer
account and ensure the documentation is current. I also have several
other projects that I would like to get back to, especially returning
to the development of the OUTBOUND code.
10:00 a.m.
While updating the documentation on the OUTBOUND code, my computer crashed.
I am so mad since I hadn't saved my work for at least 1/2 hour. Scream!!
:-(
It will take me awhile to feel like redoing that document, so let
me explain what the OUTBOUND code does. Grids are generated around space
vehicles in order to compute flow values (e.g., temperature, pressure,
etc.) at each of the grid points. These computations are part of CFD
(Computational Fluid Dynamics) and usually require large computers such
as a Cray since they are solving partial differential equations that
have no exact solution. Creating a grid is really important and time
consuming. The grid must encompass the entire region where there is
action in the flow (e.g., shock layers form in front of the vehicle
in high-speed flow). Before any solutions are available, the grid generator
has no idea where this active region is: he/she can only make an educated
guess. So: an interim solution is first computed on the initial grid
and then the code OUTBOUND is used to detect where the flow features
are, and to move the outer bounds of the grid (both in and out as necessary)
to efficiently encompass the area of interest.
Noon
Twice a year there is a NASA intracenter 2-mile and 10K (i.e., 6.2 miles)
competition. The times are all put together and points are awarded based
on times and number of competitors. We ran the 2 mile last week, and today
I went out to try and run the 10K. At my age, just finishing earns Ames
a lot of points. It was a beautiful day for running and, since it was
my first ever 10K, you could say I got a personal best.
1:30 p.m.
I am attending a meeting to discuss how my work will fit into the new
way of doing business at Ames in terms of performance measurements. This
means that the work on my task will have to be scheduled more in advance,
with milestones and measurements to see if those milestones are accomplished.
3:30 p.m.
I work part-time, and on Wednesday afternoons I volunteer at the Stanford
Health Library. This is open to the public and its function is to enable
anyone to obtain medical-related information for themselves. Many people
use it to learn more about a condition so that they can talk to their
doctors with greater confidence and understanding. Although I have no
medical training, my job is to find the resources for the clients, and
my research instincts and my knowledge of the Internet are very useful.
6:00 p.m.
Time to go home and cook dinner. As I'm leaving the library, I hear Liza
Minelli singing! She is rehearsing for a big fund-raiser for Stanford
Hospital this evening in celebration of Bloomingdales' first store in
California, opening tomorrow, right next to the Health Library.
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