I’ve always loved all aspects of flying and the stories around it. I joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a radar engineer in my early twenties after doin’ my time at uni. I learned to fly and by a stroke of good luck obtained my recreational pilot licence a few years ago. But it was in my forties that I joined Ball Aerospace Technologies Corporation (BATC) and learned of an amazing story surrounding the Hubble Telescope that now sets the scene for the work we do at Charlie Mac.
When the Hubble Telescope went up on the Discovery in 1990, it carried a massive mirror for focusing light from galaxies far away onto an image sensor. It wasn’t until Hubble was deployed that aberrations in the mirror became apparent. The images were wobbly. A colleague of mine from Lockheed Martin mentioned that two mirrors were in fact made – one that went to space and another (made by Kodak) went to the Smithsonian to be put on display. And the one in the Smithsonian was perfect – the one in space wasn’t. Funny that they got mixed up. Anyhow, BATC ran the project to build the fix – being an array of lenses on mechanical arms to counteract the aberrations.
Hubble, and now James Webb, are about gaining another perspective and although this may pose challenges – this new perspective makes you smarter. Just like Alan Kay says – Perspective is worth 80 IQ points! Charlie Mac is about gaining and acting on a better perspective. And it might just happen that through one way or another that we make you a little smarter…
Across the Industry
- Get rewarded for discovering bugs in Google’s open source projects
- Read about the history of photography in astronomy
- Join a webinar discussing cloud optimisation on September 20
- AIIA members debate the merit of data localisation
- Download a free guide to launching your own intranet
- Watch a short video on digital platform use in the Australian construction industry
Recent Government Tenders
- Latrobe City Council: Financial System Projects (TechnologyOne) – Project Management Services (VendorPanel)
- Ambulance Victoria: RFT 2382 for Automated Software to Perform Brain Computerised Tomography Perfusion (CTP) (VendorPanel)
- Melton Shire Council: RFQ: Information Management Strategy (VendorPanel)
- Fire Rescue Victoria: Integration Platform & API Management (IPAM) (Buying For Victoria)
- Western Health: Asset Information Management Systems market analysis (Buying For Victoria)
- Barwon Health: Provision for Digital Dictation (Buying For Victoria)
- Ambulance Victoria: People and Workforce Management Target State Operating Model (Buying For Victoria)
- City of Port Adelaide Enfield: Facilities Hire Booking System (SA Tenders and Contracts)
- South Australian Tourism Commission: Digital Asset Management System in the form of the South Australia Media Gallery (SA Tenders and Contracts)
- Alpine Shire Council: Corporate Internet Services 2022-25 (Tenders.Net)
Microsoft News
- Read about how Fix & Fasten strengthened their cyber security
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