I want to do a different kind of talk
this morning for you because you know
and listening to the conference
introduction and you listen to all the
topics that we’re gonna be talking about
in the next couple of days micro
services and the cloud and security it
always reminds me when I hear these sort
of conference introductions it always
reminds me of how we are right now
people right we get paid to solve
problems right now and we are intensely
interested in how to do things right
almost all of the talks you’re gonna
hear at this conference at most
conferences are all about a better way
to do it or some experience I’ve had
it’s all about right here right now
let’s get things done but every now and
then you want to pause whatever you’re
doing every now and then you want to
pause take a breath and think about why
you’re doing things what why do you do
this for a living right clearly it pays
pretty well but here’s a room full of
really smart people you could go off and
do a million different things but you
choose to do this why alright then
that’s kind of what I want to talk about
the why question is kind of a hard
question the answer and it’s a hard
question the talk about so I’m gonna
talk about it in a weird kind of way I
am gonna talk about the why question by
telling you a story it is a story that
is really close to my heart it’s it’s a
fun story so if nothing else we’ll all
sort of get woken up this morning kick
off the conference I think it’s a fun
story but I also think it’s a story that
can speak to some of the issues around
what we do and it can teach us little
things about what we’ve chosen to do for
a living and it can teach us great big
things and in particular one of the
great big things I think that this story
can teach us is why we do this stuff so
here’s what I’m going to do I’m gonna
tell you the story and then I’m gonna
circle bet around at the end and I’m
gonna try and make the case that this
story has little things to teach us and
great big things to teach us about how
we
spend their time so here goes here’s my
story it’s the summer of 1969 and it’s
hot I mean it’s really hot and when it
gets hot like this people go a little
crazy sometimes Society goes a little
crazy and here in the summer of 1969 it
seems like everything is going crazy in
the United States they’re a huge and
growing protest sometimes violent
protests against the Vietnam War
here in Europe at times whole countries
France for example have been shut down
in the last year as people take to the
streets demonstrating for better
education a fairer society a better
government and it’s not just the you
know civil unrest that seems a little
crazy here in the summer of 1969 there’s
also the pace of technological change
because here in the summer of 1969 there
are a few people there’s not very many
of them but there are a few people who
work with computers they’re a little odd
but they’re basically harmless but here
in the summer of 1969 the technology is
changing so fast that these people who
work with computers have had to learn a
new word that word is megabyte because
here in the summer of 1969 it is now
possible to buy a computer with not one
not two but four megabytes of RAM can
you believe that four megabytes of RAM
and that memory will only cost you a
hundred thousand US dollars per megabyte
it’s just insane but if you want real
crazy look no further than the Cold War
here in the summer of 1969 the Cold War
has been going on for 25 years this
beautiful city here in the summer of
1969 is divided Germany is divided
Europe is divided the world is divided
on one side is the United States and
what we call the West and on the other
side is the Soviet Union and and
basically Eastern Europe and if
to other countries and they have these
suicides have been locked in this not
quite peace not quite were thing for 25
years for 25 years they’ve been facing
each other armed to the teeth each side
waiting for the other side to make the
first move or make the first mistake or
the sneeze and you better hope nobody
sneezes because they no matter who they
are from your point of view they have
thousands of nuclear weapons we have
thousands of nuclear weapons so let me
tell you if those bombs start flying if
those bombs start flying we all have
about 15 minutes to live
so here in the summer of 1969 we are
hanging on by our fingernails living
life 15 minutes at a time but for once
for once the newspaper is here in the
summer of 1969 are not filled with news
of the Cold War or the heat or the
technology or the civil unrest for once
it’s something else
it’s Apollo it’s the project to land a
person on the moon but don’t get me
wrong
Apollo is all about the Cold War you see
in the late 1950s in the early 1960s the
Soviets were doing all these marvelous
things in space they launched the first
or satellite they put the first person
in orbit they got the first picture of
the far side of the Moon really really
crappy picture but it was a marvelous
there were the less and the Cold War was
like a chess game right they make a move
we make a move and when you’re going or
all around the world saying hey be on
our side we’re the smart ones we’re
gonna win you cannot afford to have the
other side do all the spectacular
amazing stuff and not do something so
John Kennedy was President of the United
States at the time and it was the United
States that felt like they had to do
something about what the Soviets were
doing in space so Kennedy got his
advisers together and they came up
with the strategy and the strategy they
came up with was based on the idea that
if you’re behind in a race the way we or
the US was behind in the space thing
it’s better to be behind in a very long
race in a marathon than it is in a very
short race because in a long race you
have time to catch up so Kennedy just
decided the declarer marathon where can
we go he asked where can we go in space
that’s far away that’ll turn this into a
marathon
Kennedy’s adviser said well the moon’s
pretty far away can we said fine we’re
going to the moon it’s just completely
arbitrary goal and we need a deadline
we need a stake in the calendar 1970 is
a nice round number we are going to the
moon by 1970 it’s completely arbitrary
goal completely arbitrary deadline no
one here has ever experienced that have
you so Kennedy got up in front of the US
Congress and he said we are going to go
to the moon by 1970 we’re gonna take a
person land them safely on the moon
return them to the earth by 1970 and a
funny thing happened after Kennedy gave
that speech you know people maybe you’re
walking down the street and you see your
friend and you start talking and you say
have you heard this Kennedy thing the
moon we’re going to the moon I mean
Jules Verne and HG Wells we are going to
the moon who cares if it’s about the
Cold War and it’s funny you could tell
that Kennedy caught a little bit of that
excitement that fever because a few
months after he made the first speech he
made a second speech and in that second
speech Kennedy said words more or less
we choose to go to the moon not because
it’s easy but because it’s hard so how
hard is it to go to the moon what really
all depends on how far the moon is away
and so I have a tennis ball here right
you because whenever you talked about
astronomical distances right you need an
analogue right so here’s my tennis ball
this is the earth right then they have
this little rubber ball and if this is
the moon about the right size for the
moon
now how far apart do you think the earth
and the moon are think about you know
when you’re in school there is always
that picture in your textbook you know
the picture I’m talking about this is
how tides where I can remember that
picture this is how the lunar eclipse
happens with the shadows there’s always
a picture in the earth on the moon or
about this far apart the earth in the
moon let me tell you are not this far
apart that picture is about getting the
earth and the moon on the same page the
earth and the moon are not this far
apart they’re not this far apart they’re
not this far apart my arms aren’t long
enough to be about two meters at the
scale so when Kennedy said that we’re
going to meters by an arbitrary deadline
a few people had gone out in the space
handful of Russians one American do you
know how far they’ve gotten into space
not quite as high as the fuzz on this
tennis ball they hadn’t made it out of
the fuzz yet and suddenly we’re going to
meters by an arbitrary deadline it’s
just a completely insane project so if
you have this incredibly hard project
and this impossible deadline how do you
even start like what’s the right thing
to do to start well I don’t know what
the right thing to do is but I do know
what they actually did which is they did
everything everything all at the same
time they tried to think of everything
that would have to be done to get people
to the moon right the goal is to take a
person land safely on the moon return
them to the earth well they tried to
think of everything that would have to
be done and they started doing them all
all at the same time and the prayer was
that it would all come together at the
last minute perfectly because that’s
always a good plan so one of the things
they did what’s the ask themself what’s
the simplest thing that could possibly
work here right go is person land them
on the moon return them the earth but we
can’t do that right at the beginning so
what’s the simplest thing that we can do
right now that will work so how do we
simplify it well it’s pretty obvious
could leave the person out right if you
just sent a machine to the moon and
landed it on the moon and returned it to
the earth that has got to be easier than
people cuz you know people like to
breathe and eat they don’t like
radiation and all that stuff so if you
leave the person out that would make it
simpler maybe that’s something we could
do right up front but could we make it
simpler still easier still sure if
you’re just sending a machine and
landing it on the moon you don’t have to
bring it back you can cut the trip in
half so that’s got to be easier right
but is that the easiest thing we could
possibly do not quite we need to talk
about what this word land means right
what if we read the fine land let’s go
screaming into the surface of the Moon
it you know five thousand kilometers per
hour right that would be landing of a
sort and we could take some pictures as
the moon got closer and closer and
closer thus was born project Ranger a
project they hit the moon with the
spaceships Ranger one was launched in
August of 1961 it was kind of a weird
project right it’s the goal is to crash
the spaceship so Ranger one actually
exceeded expectations certainly it was
ahead of schedule Ranger one crashed
into the Atlantic Ocean
Ranger two did better it crashed into
the Pacific Ocean
Ranger three in all seriousness did
better it made it all the way out to the
orbit of the Moon Moon one there at the
time and two Rangers three just went
sailing on by out into the great beyond
Ranger three is still out there let’s
say Ranger four actually hit the moon
Ranger four hit the moon but it died on
the way to the moon it died
electronically and the stone dead brick
of a spaceship hit the moon is that
success no not really
let’s see five Ranger five was
apparently worried about Ranger three
and joined it and the great beyond
Ranger six had a textbook three-day trip
to the moon takes about three days to
get to the moon and on the morning about
there a day the people behind Ranger 6
realized hey the spaceships working and
now it’s falling towards the moon
neither God nor Isaac Newton is gonna
keep this thing from hitting the moon
and the only thing left to do was turn
on the TV cameras and get these cool
pictures of the moon getting bigger and
bigger and the commander of the cameras
to go on and nothing happens and Ranger
six went screaming into the moon blind
as a bat
razor seven actually worked
Ranger seven actually worked and it took
these pictures as it got closer and
closer and closer to the moon and this
last picture is kind of a symbol of
Ranger 7 working because it took the
whole picture and it was radioing it
back and it got about halfway through
radioing the picture back when the
lights went out
and so you can bet that when this
picture showed up the people behind
Ranger 7 were slapping each other on the
back and drinking champagne but you can
also bet that they were thinking my god
it took us seven tries and two years to
do the simplest thing that could
possibly work how are we ever gonna do
the whole thing and the answer is they
were doing everything all at the same
time so while they were trying to hit
the hit the moon with Rangers they
realized that well they were also
building these giant going to the moon
rockets but those Rockets were not going
to be ready in time to train people
train the astronauts train the people at
Mission Control on the things they
needed to know to actually make it to
the moon so they built this whole
separate thing
well Gemini which is a two-person
spaceship that would go up in the orbit
just so that the astronauts could
practice those going to the moon skills
and they learned a lot in Gemini one of
the things they learned is about
steering rockets every spaceship has
these Rockets all over it little tiny
Rockets steering rockets and they make
it turn left turn right nose out and
those down
spin it’s the kind of thing an airplane
does with flaps in a rudder but there’s
no air in space so you have these little
rockets what they discovered in Gemini
is what happens if one of those Rockets
goes on and stays on and will not shut
off and the answer is that your
spaceship starts to spin slowly at first
but then faster and faster and faster
and the other thing they learned was
that when that happens the people inside
the spaceship after a while they can’t
see anymore as the world literally go
spinning around but the other thing they
learned was that if you haven’t asked
not in that spinning spaceship hookahs
calm enough to work the problem while
he’s literally spinning out of control
and can find the controls the switches
the throw without being able to see what
he’s doing
this is a survivable accident and
survived they did that is something to
know while they’re trying to hit the
moon with Rangers while they’re sending
people up in Gemini they’re building
these enormous workshops and they’re
building these workshops so that they
have a place to build these gigantic
going to the moon rockets and the end
result of that is this this is the
largest rocket ever built it stands
about 27 stories tall it weighs about
three million kilograms and it only has
one purpose one purpose to throw the
very pointy bit at the top the very you
can barely see it up there at the moon
because the very pointy bit you see if
that are here at the top is the result
of yet another project this is the
Apollo mothership and this is a
spaceship designed to keep three people
alive for two weeks take them to the
moon bring them back it’s got it’s a
marvel of 1960s technology
it’s got shielding they keep the
radiation out it can carry food and
water and air for three people for two
weeks it’s got this big rocket engine on
the bottom to blast them back to the
earth it’s got a heat shield and
parachutes and it floats because
lands in the ocean it is a brilliant
piece of technology and there’s only one
thing wrong with it
with all the heat shields and the
parachutes and the big rocket engine and
all the rest of it it’s actually too
heavy to land on the moon it can go from
the earth to the moon
you can orbit around the moon and it can
come back but it can’t make the last 50
60 kilometer trip down to the moon so
for that we have this this
bizarre-looking contraption is a
specialized little spaceship and it’s
designed to take two of the three people
from orbit around the moon down to the
surface of the moon so two people get in
this thing and go down to the moon one
guy stays in orbit to watch the
mothership so the plan is to send these
two spaceships out carrying these guys
this is a the crew of Apollo 11 they are
the people first people to try to land
on the surface of the moon and this guy
here is Buzz Aldrin and he is an expert
in space navigation or to put it another
way in not flying off into the great
beyond right can you imagine why they
have him on the trip god he is one of
the Buzz Aldrin is one of the two people
were actually gonna try and land on the
moon the guy on the other side is Neil
Armstrong and we’ve already met Neil
Armstrong Neil Armstrong was the guy in
the spinning out of out of control
spaceship who could work the problem
without being able to see what he was
doing
can you imagine why they picked him the
guy in the middle his name is Mike
Collins and the guy in the middle is the
guy who gets to stay in the mothership
instead of landing on the moon and he’s
got the suckiest job in the universe I
guess his job sucks not just because he
doesn’t get the land on the moon oh
that’s part of it his job sucks because
of the what else what if something
happens to the other two on the way down
to the moon what if something happens to
them on the moon once they can’t get
back in that case Colin’s job is the
turnaround and make the three day silent
sad journey back home leaving his
friends behind can you that is the worst
job in the universe it is July 20th 1969
so Sunday it’s about I would think of it
as four o’clock in the afternoon maybe
you’d think of it as 1600 a few days ago
Apollo 11 took off they’ve had a
textbook journey to the moon a few hours
ago this weird-looking spaceship with
armstrong and aldrin and them separated
and they’ve been on their way down to
the surface of the Moon ever since they
are about to enter the critical last 10
minutes of that journey a part of the
journey that NASA calls powered the sent
back on Earth’s at Mission Control there
is a room full of people arming for war
their job is to watch the data streaming
down from that weird-looking spaceship
and be the third fourth fifth 27th pair
of eyes making sure it’s working
properly and they are deadly serious
many of these people are in their late
20s or early 30s and they have spent a
big portion of their adult lives getting
ready for this moment the door is locked
there’s an armed guard on the other side
of the door no one is getting in or out
until this thing is over
they’ve locked down the circuit breakers
almost there electrical equipment they
would rather risk a fire than have the
lights go out at the wrong moment
outside of Mission Control than the rest
of the United States and in various
places around the world there is a
blanket of pension it’s right around now
it’s right around 1600 in the United
States that something weird starts to
happen on the streets there’s very few
cars to start with because most people
are inside glued to their televisions
but just right around now it’s right
around 1600 that the cars that are on
the roads start to pull off on city
streets they find a place to park on
highways that go off onto the shoulder
on rural roads they just stop the
drivers can’t drive and
until their radio listen to what’s going
on above the moon at the same time
in this very Monst house in Philadelphia
on the east coast of the United States a
ten-year-old boy and his dad are sitting
on their couch watching the coverage on
TV it’s right around now it’s right
around 1600 that the dad gets up walks
about halfway to the TV gets down and
puts his hand on his head and that’s the
way he’ll stay until it’s over they’re
watching this guy this is Walter
Cronkite they’re watching you on TV
Walter Cronkite is the kind of the king
of TV news guys in the United States the
Cronkite’s thing is that nothing upsets
him nothing bothers him he regularly
goes to war zones where people are
shooting at him and report to them this
very even voice what slate they have
people tried to kill you it is 1605 just
right at the beginning about last 10
minutes down to the surface of the Moon
Armstrong and Aldrin are at 15,000
meters they’ve gone through about a
quarter of their fuel to get here and
things are not going well the problem is
that their radio is not really working
right they can talk to the ground for a
few minutes but then look at these huge
bursts of static and even worse it’s not
just the voice their data is dropping
out as well and they need that third
fourth twenty seven pair of eyes
watching this machine so Armstrong and
Aldrin they’re doing what you would
expect people to do when the radio isn’t
working they’re changing channels and
adjusting the antenna so they basically
have their heads down playing with the
technology and fortunately they have
time to do that because they are not
actually flying the spaceship there is a
new cool gadget that’s flying that
spaceship it’s called a computer and
while it’s the rockets and the
spacesuits and all the other flashy
technology that gets all of the all of
the press the computer in that little
spaceship and the especially the
software in that computer is no less of
a leap into the
just barely possible and in fact the
woman who designed the software that is
flying that little spaceship let me
pause here for a minute and say that
again someone got to say this often
enough the woman who designed that
software a woman named Margaret Hamilton
has realized that what she’s doing is
different than the software that people
have been we’re doing before it’s
different because it’s doing 25 things
all at the same time and it’s
prioritizing its job and it’s doing
everything in real time and so Hamilton
she comes up with a new term for the
kind of software development she’s doing
she calls it software engineering and
Hamilton software the reason that they
have Hamilton software in that computer
is that Apollo 11 is not just trying to
generically land someplace on the moon
they are trying to land at a particular
pre-selected spot on the moon now when
they were planning the mission when they
were planning the mission there was a
certain amount of controversy over where
they should land on the one side there
were the scientists and the geologists
who are saying yeah yeah yeah this is
all about the Cold War but this is the
scientific opportunity of a lifetime we
have got to land someplace
scientifically interesting and on the
other side there are the astronauts and
the rocket scientists kind of bored
saying yeah okay what’s scientifically
interesting and the geologists and the
scientists are like the bottom of a
valley would be good but you know it
would be better you know it would be
better but the bottom of a canyon the
very bottom of a can no no even better
the top of a mountain the summit of a
mountain but you have to get all the way
at the top no no even better the rim of
a crater right right there on the rim to
which the astronauts and the rocket
scientists say yeah no we’re not landing
anywhere near any of those places and so
in the end it’s the rocket scientists
who win the
and so Apollo 11 is aimed at the
flattest dullest most geologically
uninteresting spot that NASA can
possibly find the computers flying them
there it is 1610 five minutes into that
10 minute flight down to the moon
Armstrong and Aldrin are down to 11,000
meters they’ve gone through about 50% of
their fuel and good news the radio is
working nobody knows why the radio
wasn’t working but now it’s working
great and you got to believe that
Armstrong and Aldrin or maybe taking a
breath and thinking well maybe it’s
gonna go well from here you know maybe
that was our problem when a display in
front of them lights up and it says 1202
1202 is a message from their computer
now I know none of us here are really
that familiar with those old computers
so let me see if I can translate 1202
and there’s something just a little more
modern
or maybe this right bunch of programmers
their computer is glitching Armstrong
radios down to Mission Control 1202
what’s 1202 because there’s hundreds of
these error codes the people in Mission
Control they have this moment a frozen
horror
what’s 1202 there’s hundreds of these
codes and there’s one guy in that room
he’s in his twenties his name is Steve
bales and he is an expert on Margaret
Hamilton software and he knows that 1202
means that the program that the software
is falling behind it’s being called on
the do more stuff than it can get to but
he also knows that when that happens the
programs do the most important things
first and right now there’s only one
important thing fly the darn spaceship
so they he has maybe three seconds to
make this decision and he just says just
ignored the 1202 it’s just keep going
just don’t pay no attention so they
radiate this up to the astronauts but
the astronauts they just can’t quite
ignore the 1202 z– for one thing
there’s a bad user interface design
there’s a bad user interface design they
have to the 1202 appears and they have
to physically push a button the clear
and if they don’t it just sits there and
they kind of want to see what the next
error code is because she ignored the
1202 s but what if the next ones 867
which means the engine fell off or
something right
so they both have their heads down and
they’re pushing these buttons clearing
the error codes it is sixteen twelve
seven minutes into that last ten minute
of flight they’re down to 600 meters
they’ve gone through four-fifths of
their fuel and good news the twelve or
twos go away nobody knows why they came
nobody knows why they’re gone but
they’re gone and finally finally finally
Armstrong has a chance to look up and
look out the window right he’s got these
this little triangular window in front
of them now if you’re flying into Berlin
or New York or London and your airplanes
at 600 meters that means you’re getting
ready to land right your tray table is
up your seatbelt is fastened you can
look out the window and see individual
cars you can see people and you can see
if those people are carrying their
shopping right at 600 meters Berlin or
London or New York it’s not the place on
the map it’s not you know where the
conference is next week it’s not that
place you’re going to at 600 meters
Berlin or New York or London
it’s a place it’s all around you
Armstrong looks out the window at 600
meters and for the first time in human
history the moon is not that light up in
the sky it’s not this geopolitical we’re
gonna kick the Russians butts by getting
there first thing it is a place it’s all
around them he can look down and they
can see the ground scrolling beneath
them and there’s rocks and hills and
things like that he can look in the
distance and he can see a mountain on
the horizon and the mountain is higher
than he is six hundred meters the moon
is a place now nobody really knows what
went through Armstrong’s mind at that
moment right only you would know like
imagine if you were him what would go
through your mind I know exactly how I
would feel looking
out that window and the word what I
would feel feel and the word is fear the
moon is a place it’s the wrong place
Armstrong has been studying maps and
photographs they’ve made little plaster
models he knows exactly what he should
see when he looks out that window and
this is not it and then it gets worse
because on that window there is this
scale and Armstrong can kind of use the
scales like a gunsight you Linus I up
and look down at the ground and he can
see where the computer is taking them
the land so he does that he lines us I
where’s this thing taking us and he sees
that a very geologically interesting
crater and even where the crater is not
that big craters about the size of a
football stadium yours or mine is a
matter but the crater is surrounded by a
huge debris field of boulders river
right what’s a crater big rock comes
down from the sky boom right there stuff
all over the place and so there’s this
huge debris field of boulders Armstrong
looks at that for a few seconds and he
makes a very Neil Armstrong decision he
turns off the autopilot and he does two
things
he kills most of their downward the sin
and he starts zooming forward he does
that because he thinks he can see in the
distance past the boulder field it looks
like there’s a reasonably flat place to
land and he’s got to get there before
they run out of fuel meanwhile back at
Mission Control right they can see
Armstrong turn off the autopilot and
they can see them kill most of the
downward descent they can see him
zooming forward the one thing they
cannot see is the crater there’s no live
video feed but there is something else
they can see they can see aren’t strong
heart rate he’s got heart monitors and
things all over his body and they’re
watching this heart monitor and at the
beginning of the powered descent
Armstrong’s heart was beating at about
80 beats per second probably slower than
right now he’s only landing on the moon
right and it slowly has crept up to
about a hundred and now in the last few
seconds as he turns off the autopilot
and start zooming forward it spikes up
to one hundred and fifty clearly
something is up the reaction of the
people in that room in Mission Control
to whatever emergency is going on they
don’t know what it is but something is
clearly up their reaction is
extraordinary what they do is nothing
and in fact they shut up the guy running
the show in Mission Control towles tells
everyone in that room he doesn’t want
anybody talking to the astronauts
anymore
he only wants to send up one bit of
information periodically how much time
do they have left how much time before
they run out of fuel it is sixteen
fourteen nine minutes into that last
10-minute flight Armstrong and Aldrin
are down to five percent of their fuel
they’re down to a hundred meters and
they are it’s zooming over the boulder
field and the edge of the boulder field
is getting closer and closer and it
really does look like there’s a decent
place to land out there they don’t know
how fast they’re going
no one ever imagined they’d be going
this fast this close to the ground so
their speedometer is off the scale high
with the edge of the boulder field is
coming up and they feel like maybe they
can make it it is 16 16 11 minutes into
that 10-minute flight Armstrong and
Aldrin are down to 10 meters they’re
down to 3 percent of their fuel and
they’re past the boulders and this does
look like a decent place and Armstrong
is jamming on the brakes to get the
things stopped so we can lower it like a
helicopter and it’s right around now
that the first ominous warning comes up
from the earth it’s just two words 60
seconds you have one minute of fuel left
Armstrong barely hears him because now
he has screeched to a halt and he’s
luring the thing down he’s trying to
find the ground he’s trying to find the
ground and at some point they lose sight
of the ground because their rocket
engine is now blowing up the huge cloud
of dust but he knows the ground is down
there and it’s right around now that the
get the second warning 30 seconds for
God’s sake land this thing
Armstrong barely hear some cuss Kenny’s
just trying to find the ground
Aldrin looks out the window and he
reports that he can see a shadow on the
ground it’s the shadow of the spaceship
they are really close now and then our
Aldrin looks at the instrument panel and
there’s a little amber light and it’s
labeled contact and as he looks at if
the astronauts call it the contact light
and as he looks at it it comes on
contact light means that the sensors on
the landing gear of this weird-looking
thing if touched something hard contact
light means they’ve landed contact light
means that these two guys are not gonna
die and better they’re not going to fail
contact light means that Armstrong and
Aldrin that those people at Mission
Control that the United States of
America that humanity has arrived but
Armstrong and Aldrin are not quite done
the plan had been to fly the thing to
about half a meter over the surface and
turn off the rocket engine and let it
fall the rest of the way but Armstrong
and Aldrin you know they were too busy
not dying to do that so now they’re
sitting on the surface burning the last
of their rocket fuel and they need to
turn off this complicated dangerous
machine full of explosives very
carefully and so they have a shutdown
checklist that they go through and they
do it together one of them will you know
do the step and the other one will read
it and check the pair astronaut and so
Armstrong starts he says shut down and
then Aldrin says okay engine stop ACA
out of detent and they go through this
long chain of mumbo-jumbo as they’re
shutting all the systems down meanwhile
the people back on earth right they can
see that the spaceship is stopped moving
data is streaming down they can see that
they can watch the system’s get shut off
and they get here Armstrong a tall drink
going through the shutdown checklist and
you would think that at this moment
somebody would say something momentous
something historical it’s not really how
people are
guy on the ground radios up the
completely obvious statement we think he
landed right Armstrong
really doesn’t respond to that he gets
the last step on the shutdown checklist
he says engine arm off and then he says
the words they had made up the words
that he had practiced the words that he
wanted to be the first words spoken from
another world
he says Houston that’s where Mission
Control is tranquility base here I’m
sharing an alternate land in the place
on the moon called The Sea of
Tranquility the Eagle that’s the name of
the little spaceship has landed and with
those words there’s highly disciplined
nerdy engineers and Mission Control with
their white shirts and their black ties
and their crew cuts as a group stand up
and start shouting you can imagine this
some shouting going on in those cars
right remember the cars pulled off to
the side of the road right what would
you do if you’re sitting on that car
listening to this right steering wheel
shout look around see if anybody’s
watching you you know certainly they’re
shouting going on in that house in
Philadelphia takes a ten-year-old boy
just a few seconds to realize hey
they’ve done that they’ve done this this
is really did it and then he realizes
that his dad is no longer down in that
crouch but his dad is jumping up and
down is shouting and shouting louder
he’s never heard his dad shell and then
the boy realized it’s not just this dad
who’s shouting it’s the people next door
it’s the people on the other side some
people across the street the whole
neighborhood is shouting and it’s the
kind of noise that you don’t exactly
hear if you feel in your stomach and it
comes in waves so it’ll be really layout
and then a little trail off and you
think it’s gonna stop it no it gets
really loud again and amidst all the
shouting the boy focuses back on the
television and he sees the second
incredible thing of the day it’s there
on TV it was just for a second the
camera cut away just for a second but he
saw it he did saw it just for a second
there was Walter Cronkite prying
that is my story um I say that I say
it’s my story it’s not really it’s your
story if you think about that story
everything that was done in that story
was done by people like you
if you roll out of bed in the morning
and you just want to build the next cool
thing story belongs to you right it is
part of our common cultural heritage and
I don’t care if you grew up in the
United States like I did or the old
Soviet Union here in Germany elsewhere
in Europe Asia it doesn’t matter if
you’re one of us this story belongs to
you but I did say that this story had
lessons to teach us things to teach us
so let me try and make the case that
other than just being kind of a fun
story it has things that teach us and it
has little things to teach us in great
big things to teach us so let me start
with the little things you know what
this story teaches us about little
things in a complicated technical
project like either software or going to
the moon little things can kill you
right let’s talk about the things that
went wrong in that last 10 minutes right
why did their radio stopped working
right for five minutes their radio
didn’t really work why was that well it
turns out that has to do with the
steering rockets from steering rockets
well the problem wasn’t that the
steering rockets on this thing didn’t
function the problem was that the
engineers behind this weird-looking
spaceship a few months before it took
off got worried that the steering
rockets would actually burn through the
skin of the spaceship some of these
steering rockets were kind of pointed
close to parts of the skin so they put
these shields on it they keep the
steering deflect the rocket exhaust so
if they can get you know burn through
the skin and those shields worked really
well at the flexing the rocket exhaust
it also worked really well at reflecting
the radio signals and at certain angles
it would screw up the radio
communications guess which angles
the earth is like right here when you’re
trying to land on the moon they had
never done that before
right little things can kill you a
couple of pieces of sheet metal can kill
you and you know here’s a here’s a
machine that has two million parts
somebody puts a couple of pieces of
sheet metal on it and it almost fails
why did their computer crash their
computer crashed because I had a couple
of different modes one mode was tracked
the ground that’s the mode it should
have been in right pay no attention
anything else tracked the grounds the
mode it was actually in there was a
switch you could select the mode the
mode it was actually in was tracked the
ground and the mothership at the same
time well it turned out it couldn’t
actually do that and started fall behind
because the switch was in the wrong
place right switch is in the wrong place
that can kill you couple of pieces of
sheet metal can kill you why were they
off course they had this pinpoint
landing picked out how did they get off
course for that we need to go a few
hours before the landing when these two
spaceships were hooked together when
they were hooked together there was like
a tunnel that ran between them so the
people could go back and forth and when
they were getting ready to separate they
closed the hatch at one end of the
tunnel close the hatch at the other end
and what they were supposed to do was
pump all the air out of that tunnel well
maybe they’re in a hurry maybe their
minds were on other things didn’t quite
get all of the air out of the tunnel so
when they separated there was a puff of
air that changed the speed of the lander
by one kilometer per hour thing is going
1,700 kilometers per hour and it gets
bumped and so that speed changes by one
kilometer per hour what possible
difference could one kilometer per hour
make over two hours two kilometers the
distance between a nice flat boring
landing site and the crater of death
right little things can kill you but you
know what else
the reason they overcame the thing the
little things that almost killed this
effort was trust think about the people
in Mission Control when Armstrong he
turned off the autopilot they did not
radio up to him
Neal you’ve turned off your targeting
computer what’s the matter
they simply they simply you know went
trusted him
when the computer crashed
Armstrong asked Mission Control Mission
Control asked Steve bales Steve bales
basically trusted Margaret Hamilton and
our software this was a chain of trust a
quarter of a million miles long right
Trust is what overcame the little things
that went wrong there’s also I think
something we can learn about leadership
you need real leadership to do something
like this you need real leadership to do
the kind of stuff we do but in
particular you need to know the
difference between a leader and a hero I
think we in the software industry we
spend too much of our time worrying
about heroes and heroics and what we
really need are leaders like take this
picture
as an American I got to tell you I look
at this picture every time and it grabs
me right it’s very heroic and that’s the
problem with it it looks like it was
perfect it looks like there was this guy
and he flew this perfect trip to the
moon and he got out and he took this
lovely picture and it was all flawless
we know that’s not the case we know that
this was thing was a struggle every step
of the way I like instead of this
picture you know what I like I like the
shutdown checklist
I like the shutdown checklist because it
speaks to me of leadership right these
are the words of two guys trying to get
the job done at the end of a really bad
day I like these words especially it
makes me feel closer to this thing
because these are the kind of thing this
is the kind of mumbo-jumbo jargon that
we speak to each other with all the time
right our jargon is a little different
than this jargon but it’s the same kind
of incomprehensible nonsense right I
could be saying something almost this
incomprehensible bit as this when I go
to work you you to these are the words
of people like us you know what else
these are these are the first word
spoken from another world I like that
they’re real words I like that they’re
people trying to finish the job that’s
something to remember that’s leadership
and that that kind of brings me to the
bigger lessons I think of the moon
landing and I think the big lesson of
the moon landing starts with the idea
that when you do something technically
difficult something technically cool you
cannot predict the outcome right and so
for example we went to the moon
to win the cold war and kick the
Russians butts and a funny thing
happened on the way to the moon funny
thing happened on the way to the moon we
look back we looked over our shoulder
and we saw that we see ourselves we saw
a place in the universe now I know for
maybe everybody here most of you anyway
pictures like this they’re just kind of
part of the wallpaper you seen them a
thousand times right they don’t even
register anymore people put them on
t-shirts they’re the backgrounds on
computers I would like for you to try to
imagine that you have gotten to a
certain point in your life having never
seen a picture like this before and then
one day somebody comes and slaps it down
in front of you how would it make you
feel what would you say I can tell you
you say holy mother of God that’s
everything that’s all of us it’s all
we’ve ever known that is every birthday
it’s every first day of school it’s
every graduation it’s every first date
it’s every love-affair – every marriage
it’s every wedding anniversary it’s
every funeral it’s every birthday so all
we are it’s everything we’ve ever known
it’s beautiful it’s tiny it’s out there
in the black and then you think for a
second and you think maybe we should
take care of it
it’s no coincidence in my opinion that
pictures like this coincide almost
exactly with modern environmentalism as
a mass political movement you look at
the picture and it just comes to you
right
do something difficult you do something
technically sweet and you cannot predict
the outcome which and that kind of
brings me to what I think of is the big
lesson kind of the why lesson of the
story and it’s something I have a hard
time putting into words and mostly I
think of it as a conversation I think of
it as maybe you and I go out and have a
beer you think we could find a beer in
Berlin you and I go out and have a beer
and maybe one of us it doesn’t matter
which has an idea and it doesn’t matter
what the idea is maybe you want to get
rich selling pet food on the internet
maybe I want to create a new programming
language or a database or something
doesn’t matter right now maybe you’re
against the idea and so you’re trying to
argue me out of the idea and you could
tell me it’s a bad idea you know no one
will be interested or it won’t you know
it won’t make any money and sure we
could talk about that you could tell me
that maybe they’ll just make society
more unfair that it’ll be bad for people
and sure you know we could talk about
that or it’ll make your hair fall out of
your teeth right I don’t know you know
and we’re gonna talk about all these
things the one thing you can’t tell me
one thing I just won’t believe is that
it is not possible
I just won’t believe you see I’m
familiar with the impossible I saw it on
a TV when I was a kid for me the
ultimate lesson of Apollo is that when
you do something hard when you do
something technically sweet well
congratulations you have the thing great
but there’s this other effect that goes
out from it it’s like a wave it’s a wave
of belief if she can do that maybe I can
do that it’s a it makes people believe
in the possibilities if he can do that
maybe I can do something like that makes
people believe in themselves I can do it
I know this for a fact I know this for a
fact because I am the result of one of
those ways I am a child of Apollo I sat
on that couch and my life changed it got
off of whatever path have had been on
and it got on a different path a path
that led me to the University and to
engineering and programming a little
while after that to writing books and a
little while after that to being here
with you this morning for me the
ultimate lesson of Apollo really has
very little to do with space travel or
astronauts or any of that stuff and it
has everything to do with belief now I
said that the story belongs to you and
it does but the story comes with a
challenge and challenge is to do the
best thing to build the best thing that
you possibly can you build it because
it’s worth building you build it because
it will inspire your co-workers you
build it because it will inspire the
people coming up through the profession
behind you you build it for the next
bunch of 10 year olds so for me the
ultimate lesson of Apollo is all the way
back so the words that started it all
all those decades ago we choose to go to
the moon not because it’s easy but
because it’s hard go do something hard
thank you
you
this morning for you because you know
and listening to the conference
introduction and you listen to all the
topics that we’re gonna be talking about
in the next couple of days micro
services and the cloud and security it
always reminds me when I hear these sort
of conference introductions it always
reminds me of how we are right now
people right we get paid to solve
problems right now and we are intensely
interested in how to do things right
almost all of the talks you’re gonna
hear at this conference at most
conferences are all about a better way
to do it or some experience I’ve had
it’s all about right here right now
let’s get things done but every now and
then you want to pause whatever you’re
doing every now and then you want to
pause take a breath and think about why
you’re doing things what why do you do
this for a living right clearly it pays
pretty well but here’s a room full of
really smart people you could go off and
do a million different things but you
choose to do this why alright then
that’s kind of what I want to talk about
the why question is kind of a hard
question the answer and it’s a hard
question the talk about so I’m gonna
talk about it in a weird kind of way I
am gonna talk about the why question by
telling you a story it is a story that
is really close to my heart it’s it’s a
fun story so if nothing else we’ll all
sort of get woken up this morning kick
off the conference I think it’s a fun
story but I also think it’s a story that
can speak to some of the issues around
what we do and it can teach us little
things about what we’ve chosen to do for
a living and it can teach us great big
things and in particular one of the
great big things I think that this story
can teach us is why we do this stuff so
here’s what I’m going to do I’m gonna
tell you the story and then I’m gonna
circle bet around at the end and I’m
gonna try and make the case that this
story has little things to teach us and
great big things to teach us about how
we
spend their time so here goes here’s my
story it’s the summer of 1969 and it’s
hot I mean it’s really hot and when it
gets hot like this people go a little
crazy sometimes Society goes a little
crazy and here in the summer of 1969 it
seems like everything is going crazy in
the United States they’re a huge and
growing protest sometimes violent
protests against the Vietnam War
here in Europe at times whole countries
France for example have been shut down
in the last year as people take to the
streets demonstrating for better
education a fairer society a better
government and it’s not just the you
know civil unrest that seems a little
crazy here in the summer of 1969 there’s
also the pace of technological change
because here in the summer of 1969 there
are a few people there’s not very many
of them but there are a few people who
work with computers they’re a little odd
but they’re basically harmless but here
in the summer of 1969 the technology is
changing so fast that these people who
work with computers have had to learn a
new word that word is megabyte because
here in the summer of 1969 it is now
possible to buy a computer with not one
not two but four megabytes of RAM can
you believe that four megabytes of RAM
and that memory will only cost you a
hundred thousand US dollars per megabyte
it’s just insane but if you want real
crazy look no further than the Cold War
here in the summer of 1969 the Cold War
has been going on for 25 years this
beautiful city here in the summer of
1969 is divided Germany is divided
Europe is divided the world is divided
on one side is the United States and
what we call the West and on the other
side is the Soviet Union and and
basically Eastern Europe and if
to other countries and they have these
suicides have been locked in this not
quite peace not quite were thing for 25
years for 25 years they’ve been facing
each other armed to the teeth each side
waiting for the other side to make the
first move or make the first mistake or
the sneeze and you better hope nobody
sneezes because they no matter who they
are from your point of view they have
thousands of nuclear weapons we have
thousands of nuclear weapons so let me
tell you if those bombs start flying if
those bombs start flying we all have
about 15 minutes to live
so here in the summer of 1969 we are
hanging on by our fingernails living
life 15 minutes at a time but for once
for once the newspaper is here in the
summer of 1969 are not filled with news
of the Cold War or the heat or the
technology or the civil unrest for once
it’s something else
it’s Apollo it’s the project to land a
person on the moon but don’t get me
wrong
Apollo is all about the Cold War you see
in the late 1950s in the early 1960s the
Soviets were doing all these marvelous
things in space they launched the first
or satellite they put the first person
in orbit they got the first picture of
the far side of the Moon really really
crappy picture but it was a marvelous
there were the less and the Cold War was
like a chess game right they make a move
we make a move and when you’re going or
all around the world saying hey be on
our side we’re the smart ones we’re
gonna win you cannot afford to have the
other side do all the spectacular
amazing stuff and not do something so
John Kennedy was President of the United
States at the time and it was the United
States that felt like they had to do
something about what the Soviets were
doing in space so Kennedy got his
advisers together and they came up
with the strategy and the strategy they
came up with was based on the idea that
if you’re behind in a race the way we or
the US was behind in the space thing
it’s better to be behind in a very long
race in a marathon than it is in a very
short race because in a long race you
have time to catch up so Kennedy just
decided the declarer marathon where can
we go he asked where can we go in space
that’s far away that’ll turn this into a
marathon
Kennedy’s adviser said well the moon’s
pretty far away can we said fine we’re
going to the moon it’s just completely
arbitrary goal and we need a deadline
we need a stake in the calendar 1970 is
a nice round number we are going to the
moon by 1970 it’s completely arbitrary
goal completely arbitrary deadline no
one here has ever experienced that have
you so Kennedy got up in front of the US
Congress and he said we are going to go
to the moon by 1970 we’re gonna take a
person land them safely on the moon
return them to the earth by 1970 and a
funny thing happened after Kennedy gave
that speech you know people maybe you’re
walking down the street and you see your
friend and you start talking and you say
have you heard this Kennedy thing the
moon we’re going to the moon I mean
Jules Verne and HG Wells we are going to
the moon who cares if it’s about the
Cold War and it’s funny you could tell
that Kennedy caught a little bit of that
excitement that fever because a few
months after he made the first speech he
made a second speech and in that second
speech Kennedy said words more or less
we choose to go to the moon not because
it’s easy but because it’s hard so how
hard is it to go to the moon what really
all depends on how far the moon is away
and so I have a tennis ball here right
you because whenever you talked about
astronomical distances right you need an
analogue right so here’s my tennis ball
this is the earth right then they have
this little rubber ball and if this is
the moon about the right size for the
moon
now how far apart do you think the earth
and the moon are think about you know
when you’re in school there is always
that picture in your textbook you know
the picture I’m talking about this is
how tides where I can remember that
picture this is how the lunar eclipse
happens with the shadows there’s always
a picture in the earth on the moon or
about this far apart the earth in the
moon let me tell you are not this far
apart that picture is about getting the
earth and the moon on the same page the
earth and the moon are not this far
apart they’re not this far apart they’re
not this far apart my arms aren’t long
enough to be about two meters at the
scale so when Kennedy said that we’re
going to meters by an arbitrary deadline
a few people had gone out in the space
handful of Russians one American do you
know how far they’ve gotten into space
not quite as high as the fuzz on this
tennis ball they hadn’t made it out of
the fuzz yet and suddenly we’re going to
meters by an arbitrary deadline it’s
just a completely insane project so if
you have this incredibly hard project
and this impossible deadline how do you
even start like what’s the right thing
to do to start well I don’t know what
the right thing to do is but I do know
what they actually did which is they did
everything everything all at the same
time they tried to think of everything
that would have to be done to get people
to the moon right the goal is to take a
person land safely on the moon return
them to the earth well they tried to
think of everything that would have to
be done and they started doing them all
all at the same time and the prayer was
that it would all come together at the
last minute perfectly because that’s
always a good plan so one of the things
they did what’s the ask themself what’s
the simplest thing that could possibly
work here right go is person land them
on the moon return them the earth but we
can’t do that right at the beginning so
what’s the simplest thing that we can do
right now that will work so how do we
simplify it well it’s pretty obvious
could leave the person out right if you
just sent a machine to the moon and
landed it on the moon and returned it to
the earth that has got to be easier than
people cuz you know people like to
breathe and eat they don’t like
radiation and all that stuff so if you
leave the person out that would make it
simpler maybe that’s something we could
do right up front but could we make it
simpler still easier still sure if
you’re just sending a machine and
landing it on the moon you don’t have to
bring it back you can cut the trip in
half so that’s got to be easier right
but is that the easiest thing we could
possibly do not quite we need to talk
about what this word land means right
what if we read the fine land let’s go
screaming into the surface of the Moon
it you know five thousand kilometers per
hour right that would be landing of a
sort and we could take some pictures as
the moon got closer and closer and
closer thus was born project Ranger a
project they hit the moon with the
spaceships Ranger one was launched in
August of 1961 it was kind of a weird
project right it’s the goal is to crash
the spaceship so Ranger one actually
exceeded expectations certainly it was
ahead of schedule Ranger one crashed
into the Atlantic Ocean
Ranger two did better it crashed into
the Pacific Ocean
Ranger three in all seriousness did
better it made it all the way out to the
orbit of the Moon Moon one there at the
time and two Rangers three just went
sailing on by out into the great beyond
Ranger three is still out there let’s
say Ranger four actually hit the moon
Ranger four hit the moon but it died on
the way to the moon it died
electronically and the stone dead brick
of a spaceship hit the moon is that
success no not really
let’s see five Ranger five was
apparently worried about Ranger three
and joined it and the great beyond
Ranger six had a textbook three-day trip
to the moon takes about three days to
get to the moon and on the morning about
there a day the people behind Ranger 6
realized hey the spaceships working and
now it’s falling towards the moon
neither God nor Isaac Newton is gonna
keep this thing from hitting the moon
and the only thing left to do was turn
on the TV cameras and get these cool
pictures of the moon getting bigger and
bigger and the commander of the cameras
to go on and nothing happens and Ranger
six went screaming into the moon blind
as a bat
razor seven actually worked
Ranger seven actually worked and it took
these pictures as it got closer and
closer and closer to the moon and this
last picture is kind of a symbol of
Ranger 7 working because it took the
whole picture and it was radioing it
back and it got about halfway through
radioing the picture back when the
lights went out
and so you can bet that when this
picture showed up the people behind
Ranger 7 were slapping each other on the
back and drinking champagne but you can
also bet that they were thinking my god
it took us seven tries and two years to
do the simplest thing that could
possibly work how are we ever gonna do
the whole thing and the answer is they
were doing everything all at the same
time so while they were trying to hit
the hit the moon with Rangers they
realized that well they were also
building these giant going to the moon
rockets but those Rockets were not going
to be ready in time to train people
train the astronauts train the people at
Mission Control on the things they
needed to know to actually make it to
the moon so they built this whole
separate thing
well Gemini which is a two-person
spaceship that would go up in the orbit
just so that the astronauts could
practice those going to the moon skills
and they learned a lot in Gemini one of
the things they learned is about
steering rockets every spaceship has
these Rockets all over it little tiny
Rockets steering rockets and they make
it turn left turn right nose out and
those down
spin it’s the kind of thing an airplane
does with flaps in a rudder but there’s
no air in space so you have these little
rockets what they discovered in Gemini
is what happens if one of those Rockets
goes on and stays on and will not shut
off and the answer is that your
spaceship starts to spin slowly at first
but then faster and faster and faster
and the other thing they learned was
that when that happens the people inside
the spaceship after a while they can’t
see anymore as the world literally go
spinning around but the other thing they
learned was that if you haven’t asked
not in that spinning spaceship hookahs
calm enough to work the problem while
he’s literally spinning out of control
and can find the controls the switches
the throw without being able to see what
he’s doing
this is a survivable accident and
survived they did that is something to
know while they’re trying to hit the
moon with Rangers while they’re sending
people up in Gemini they’re building
these enormous workshops and they’re
building these workshops so that they
have a place to build these gigantic
going to the moon rockets and the end
result of that is this this is the
largest rocket ever built it stands
about 27 stories tall it weighs about
three million kilograms and it only has
one purpose one purpose to throw the
very pointy bit at the top the very you
can barely see it up there at the moon
because the very pointy bit you see if
that are here at the top is the result
of yet another project this is the
Apollo mothership and this is a
spaceship designed to keep three people
alive for two weeks take them to the
moon bring them back it’s got it’s a
marvel of 1960s technology
it’s got shielding they keep the
radiation out it can carry food and
water and air for three people for two
weeks it’s got this big rocket engine on
the bottom to blast them back to the
earth it’s got a heat shield and
parachutes and it floats because
lands in the ocean it is a brilliant
piece of technology and there’s only one
thing wrong with it
with all the heat shields and the
parachutes and the big rocket engine and
all the rest of it it’s actually too
heavy to land on the moon it can go from
the earth to the moon
you can orbit around the moon and it can
come back but it can’t make the last 50
60 kilometer trip down to the moon so
for that we have this this
bizarre-looking contraption is a
specialized little spaceship and it’s
designed to take two of the three people
from orbit around the moon down to the
surface of the moon so two people get in
this thing and go down to the moon one
guy stays in orbit to watch the
mothership so the plan is to send these
two spaceships out carrying these guys
this is a the crew of Apollo 11 they are
the people first people to try to land
on the surface of the moon and this guy
here is Buzz Aldrin and he is an expert
in space navigation or to put it another
way in not flying off into the great
beyond right can you imagine why they
have him on the trip god he is one of
the Buzz Aldrin is one of the two people
were actually gonna try and land on the
moon the guy on the other side is Neil
Armstrong and we’ve already met Neil
Armstrong Neil Armstrong was the guy in
the spinning out of out of control
spaceship who could work the problem
without being able to see what he was
doing
can you imagine why they picked him the
guy in the middle his name is Mike
Collins and the guy in the middle is the
guy who gets to stay in the mothership
instead of landing on the moon and he’s
got the suckiest job in the universe I
guess his job sucks not just because he
doesn’t get the land on the moon oh
that’s part of it his job sucks because
of the what else what if something
happens to the other two on the way down
to the moon what if something happens to
them on the moon once they can’t get
back in that case Colin’s job is the
turnaround and make the three day silent
sad journey back home leaving his
friends behind can you that is the worst
job in the universe it is July 20th 1969
so Sunday it’s about I would think of it
as four o’clock in the afternoon maybe
you’d think of it as 1600 a few days ago
Apollo 11 took off they’ve had a
textbook journey to the moon a few hours
ago this weird-looking spaceship with
armstrong and aldrin and them separated
and they’ve been on their way down to
the surface of the Moon ever since they
are about to enter the critical last 10
minutes of that journey a part of the
journey that NASA calls powered the sent
back on Earth’s at Mission Control there
is a room full of people arming for war
their job is to watch the data streaming
down from that weird-looking spaceship
and be the third fourth fifth 27th pair
of eyes making sure it’s working
properly and they are deadly serious
many of these people are in their late
20s or early 30s and they have spent a
big portion of their adult lives getting
ready for this moment the door is locked
there’s an armed guard on the other side
of the door no one is getting in or out
until this thing is over
they’ve locked down the circuit breakers
almost there electrical equipment they
would rather risk a fire than have the
lights go out at the wrong moment
outside of Mission Control than the rest
of the United States and in various
places around the world there is a
blanket of pension it’s right around now
it’s right around 1600 in the United
States that something weird starts to
happen on the streets there’s very few
cars to start with because most people
are inside glued to their televisions
but just right around now it’s right
around 1600 that the cars that are on
the roads start to pull off on city
streets they find a place to park on
highways that go off onto the shoulder
on rural roads they just stop the
drivers can’t drive and
until their radio listen to what’s going
on above the moon at the same time
in this very Monst house in Philadelphia
on the east coast of the United States a
ten-year-old boy and his dad are sitting
on their couch watching the coverage on
TV it’s right around now it’s right
around 1600 that the dad gets up walks
about halfway to the TV gets down and
puts his hand on his head and that’s the
way he’ll stay until it’s over they’re
watching this guy this is Walter
Cronkite they’re watching you on TV
Walter Cronkite is the kind of the king
of TV news guys in the United States the
Cronkite’s thing is that nothing upsets
him nothing bothers him he regularly
goes to war zones where people are
shooting at him and report to them this
very even voice what slate they have
people tried to kill you it is 1605 just
right at the beginning about last 10
minutes down to the surface of the Moon
Armstrong and Aldrin are at 15,000
meters they’ve gone through about a
quarter of their fuel to get here and
things are not going well the problem is
that their radio is not really working
right they can talk to the ground for a
few minutes but then look at these huge
bursts of static and even worse it’s not
just the voice their data is dropping
out as well and they need that third
fourth twenty seven pair of eyes
watching this machine so Armstrong and
Aldrin they’re doing what you would
expect people to do when the radio isn’t
working they’re changing channels and
adjusting the antenna so they basically
have their heads down playing with the
technology and fortunately they have
time to do that because they are not
actually flying the spaceship there is a
new cool gadget that’s flying that
spaceship it’s called a computer and
while it’s the rockets and the
spacesuits and all the other flashy
technology that gets all of the all of
the press the computer in that little
spaceship and the especially the
software in that computer is no less of
a leap into the
just barely possible and in fact the
woman who designed the software that is
flying that little spaceship let me
pause here for a minute and say that
again someone got to say this often
enough the woman who designed that
software a woman named Margaret Hamilton
has realized that what she’s doing is
different than the software that people
have been we’re doing before it’s
different because it’s doing 25 things
all at the same time and it’s
prioritizing its job and it’s doing
everything in real time and so Hamilton
she comes up with a new term for the
kind of software development she’s doing
she calls it software engineering and
Hamilton software the reason that they
have Hamilton software in that computer
is that Apollo 11 is not just trying to
generically land someplace on the moon
they are trying to land at a particular
pre-selected spot on the moon now when
they were planning the mission when they
were planning the mission there was a
certain amount of controversy over where
they should land on the one side there
were the scientists and the geologists
who are saying yeah yeah yeah this is
all about the Cold War but this is the
scientific opportunity of a lifetime we
have got to land someplace
scientifically interesting and on the
other side there are the astronauts and
the rocket scientists kind of bored
saying yeah okay what’s scientifically
interesting and the geologists and the
scientists are like the bottom of a
valley would be good but you know it
would be better you know it would be
better but the bottom of a canyon the
very bottom of a can no no even better
the top of a mountain the summit of a
mountain but you have to get all the way
at the top no no even better the rim of
a crater right right there on the rim to
which the astronauts and the rocket
scientists say yeah no we’re not landing
anywhere near any of those places and so
in the end it’s the rocket scientists
who win the
and so Apollo 11 is aimed at the
flattest dullest most geologically
uninteresting spot that NASA can
possibly find the computers flying them
there it is 1610 five minutes into that
10 minute flight down to the moon
Armstrong and Aldrin are down to 11,000
meters they’ve gone through about 50% of
their fuel and good news the radio is
working nobody knows why the radio
wasn’t working but now it’s working
great and you got to believe that
Armstrong and Aldrin or maybe taking a
breath and thinking well maybe it’s
gonna go well from here you know maybe
that was our problem when a display in
front of them lights up and it says 1202
1202 is a message from their computer
now I know none of us here are really
that familiar with those old computers
so let me see if I can translate 1202
and there’s something just a little more
modern
or maybe this right bunch of programmers
their computer is glitching Armstrong
radios down to Mission Control 1202
what’s 1202 because there’s hundreds of
these error codes the people in Mission
Control they have this moment a frozen
horror
what’s 1202 there’s hundreds of these
codes and there’s one guy in that room
he’s in his twenties his name is Steve
bales and he is an expert on Margaret
Hamilton software and he knows that 1202
means that the program that the software
is falling behind it’s being called on
the do more stuff than it can get to but
he also knows that when that happens the
programs do the most important things
first and right now there’s only one
important thing fly the darn spaceship
so they he has maybe three seconds to
make this decision and he just says just
ignored the 1202 it’s just keep going
just don’t pay no attention so they
radiate this up to the astronauts but
the astronauts they just can’t quite
ignore the 1202 z– for one thing
there’s a bad user interface design
there’s a bad user interface design they
have to the 1202 appears and they have
to physically push a button the clear
and if they don’t it just sits there and
they kind of want to see what the next
error code is because she ignored the
1202 s but what if the next ones 867
which means the engine fell off or
something right
so they both have their heads down and
they’re pushing these buttons clearing
the error codes it is sixteen twelve
seven minutes into that last ten minute
of flight they’re down to 600 meters
they’ve gone through four-fifths of
their fuel and good news the twelve or
twos go away nobody knows why they came
nobody knows why they’re gone but
they’re gone and finally finally finally
Armstrong has a chance to look up and
look out the window right he’s got these
this little triangular window in front
of them now if you’re flying into Berlin
or New York or London and your airplanes
at 600 meters that means you’re getting
ready to land right your tray table is
up your seatbelt is fastened you can
look out the window and see individual
cars you can see people and you can see
if those people are carrying their
shopping right at 600 meters Berlin or
London or New York it’s not the place on
the map it’s not you know where the
conference is next week it’s not that
place you’re going to at 600 meters
Berlin or New York or London
it’s a place it’s all around you
Armstrong looks out the window at 600
meters and for the first time in human
history the moon is not that light up in
the sky it’s not this geopolitical we’re
gonna kick the Russians butts by getting
there first thing it is a place it’s all
around them he can look down and they
can see the ground scrolling beneath
them and there’s rocks and hills and
things like that he can look in the
distance and he can see a mountain on
the horizon and the mountain is higher
than he is six hundred meters the moon
is a place now nobody really knows what
went through Armstrong’s mind at that
moment right only you would know like
imagine if you were him what would go
through your mind I know exactly how I
would feel looking
out that window and the word what I
would feel feel and the word is fear the
moon is a place it’s the wrong place
Armstrong has been studying maps and
photographs they’ve made little plaster
models he knows exactly what he should
see when he looks out that window and
this is not it and then it gets worse
because on that window there is this
scale and Armstrong can kind of use the
scales like a gunsight you Linus I up
and look down at the ground and he can
see where the computer is taking them
the land so he does that he lines us I
where’s this thing taking us and he sees
that a very geologically interesting
crater and even where the crater is not
that big craters about the size of a
football stadium yours or mine is a
matter but the crater is surrounded by a
huge debris field of boulders river
right what’s a crater big rock comes
down from the sky boom right there stuff
all over the place and so there’s this
huge debris field of boulders Armstrong
looks at that for a few seconds and he
makes a very Neil Armstrong decision he
turns off the autopilot and he does two
things
he kills most of their downward the sin
and he starts zooming forward he does
that because he thinks he can see in the
distance past the boulder field it looks
like there’s a reasonably flat place to
land and he’s got to get there before
they run out of fuel meanwhile back at
Mission Control right they can see
Armstrong turn off the autopilot and
they can see them kill most of the
downward descent they can see him
zooming forward the one thing they
cannot see is the crater there’s no live
video feed but there is something else
they can see they can see aren’t strong
heart rate he’s got heart monitors and
things all over his body and they’re
watching this heart monitor and at the
beginning of the powered descent
Armstrong’s heart was beating at about
80 beats per second probably slower than
right now he’s only landing on the moon
right and it slowly has crept up to
about a hundred and now in the last few
seconds as he turns off the autopilot
and start zooming forward it spikes up
to one hundred and fifty clearly
something is up the reaction of the
people in that room in Mission Control
to whatever emergency is going on they
don’t know what it is but something is
clearly up their reaction is
extraordinary what they do is nothing
and in fact they shut up the guy running
the show in Mission Control towles tells
everyone in that room he doesn’t want
anybody talking to the astronauts
anymore
he only wants to send up one bit of
information periodically how much time
do they have left how much time before
they run out of fuel it is sixteen
fourteen nine minutes into that last
10-minute flight Armstrong and Aldrin
are down to five percent of their fuel
they’re down to a hundred meters and
they are it’s zooming over the boulder
field and the edge of the boulder field
is getting closer and closer and it
really does look like there’s a decent
place to land out there they don’t know
how fast they’re going
no one ever imagined they’d be going
this fast this close to the ground so
their speedometer is off the scale high
with the edge of the boulder field is
coming up and they feel like maybe they
can make it it is 16 16 11 minutes into
that 10-minute flight Armstrong and
Aldrin are down to 10 meters they’re
down to 3 percent of their fuel and
they’re past the boulders and this does
look like a decent place and Armstrong
is jamming on the brakes to get the
things stopped so we can lower it like a
helicopter and it’s right around now
that the first ominous warning comes up
from the earth it’s just two words 60
seconds you have one minute of fuel left
Armstrong barely hears him because now
he has screeched to a halt and he’s
luring the thing down he’s trying to
find the ground he’s trying to find the
ground and at some point they lose sight
of the ground because their rocket
engine is now blowing up the huge cloud
of dust but he knows the ground is down
there and it’s right around now that the
get the second warning 30 seconds for
God’s sake land this thing
Armstrong barely hear some cuss Kenny’s
just trying to find the ground
Aldrin looks out the window and he
reports that he can see a shadow on the
ground it’s the shadow of the spaceship
they are really close now and then our
Aldrin looks at the instrument panel and
there’s a little amber light and it’s
labeled contact and as he looks at if
the astronauts call it the contact light
and as he looks at it it comes on
contact light means that the sensors on
the landing gear of this weird-looking
thing if touched something hard contact
light means they’ve landed contact light
means that these two guys are not gonna
die and better they’re not going to fail
contact light means that Armstrong and
Aldrin that those people at Mission
Control that the United States of
America that humanity has arrived but
Armstrong and Aldrin are not quite done
the plan had been to fly the thing to
about half a meter over the surface and
turn off the rocket engine and let it
fall the rest of the way but Armstrong
and Aldrin you know they were too busy
not dying to do that so now they’re
sitting on the surface burning the last
of their rocket fuel and they need to
turn off this complicated dangerous
machine full of explosives very
carefully and so they have a shutdown
checklist that they go through and they
do it together one of them will you know
do the step and the other one will read
it and check the pair astronaut and so
Armstrong starts he says shut down and
then Aldrin says okay engine stop ACA
out of detent and they go through this
long chain of mumbo-jumbo as they’re
shutting all the systems down meanwhile
the people back on earth right they can
see that the spaceship is stopped moving
data is streaming down they can see that
they can watch the system’s get shut off
and they get here Armstrong a tall drink
going through the shutdown checklist and
you would think that at this moment
somebody would say something momentous
something historical it’s not really how
people are
guy on the ground radios up the
completely obvious statement we think he
landed right Armstrong
really doesn’t respond to that he gets
the last step on the shutdown checklist
he says engine arm off and then he says
the words they had made up the words
that he had practiced the words that he
wanted to be the first words spoken from
another world
he says Houston that’s where Mission
Control is tranquility base here I’m
sharing an alternate land in the place
on the moon called The Sea of
Tranquility the Eagle that’s the name of
the little spaceship has landed and with
those words there’s highly disciplined
nerdy engineers and Mission Control with
their white shirts and their black ties
and their crew cuts as a group stand up
and start shouting you can imagine this
some shouting going on in those cars
right remember the cars pulled off to
the side of the road right what would
you do if you’re sitting on that car
listening to this right steering wheel
shout look around see if anybody’s
watching you you know certainly they’re
shouting going on in that house in
Philadelphia takes a ten-year-old boy
just a few seconds to realize hey
they’ve done that they’ve done this this
is really did it and then he realizes
that his dad is no longer down in that
crouch but his dad is jumping up and
down is shouting and shouting louder
he’s never heard his dad shell and then
the boy realized it’s not just this dad
who’s shouting it’s the people next door
it’s the people on the other side some
people across the street the whole
neighborhood is shouting and it’s the
kind of noise that you don’t exactly
hear if you feel in your stomach and it
comes in waves so it’ll be really layout
and then a little trail off and you
think it’s gonna stop it no it gets
really loud again and amidst all the
shouting the boy focuses back on the
television and he sees the second
incredible thing of the day it’s there
on TV it was just for a second the
camera cut away just for a second but he
saw it he did saw it just for a second
there was Walter Cronkite prying
that is my story um I say that I say
it’s my story it’s not really it’s your
story if you think about that story
everything that was done in that story
was done by people like you
if you roll out of bed in the morning
and you just want to build the next cool
thing story belongs to you right it is
part of our common cultural heritage and
I don’t care if you grew up in the
United States like I did or the old
Soviet Union here in Germany elsewhere
in Europe Asia it doesn’t matter if
you’re one of us this story belongs to
you but I did say that this story had
lessons to teach us things to teach us
so let me try and make the case that
other than just being kind of a fun
story it has things that teach us and it
has little things to teach us in great
big things to teach us so let me start
with the little things you know what
this story teaches us about little
things in a complicated technical
project like either software or going to
the moon little things can kill you
right let’s talk about the things that
went wrong in that last 10 minutes right
why did their radio stopped working
right for five minutes their radio
didn’t really work why was that well it
turns out that has to do with the
steering rockets from steering rockets
well the problem wasn’t that the
steering rockets on this thing didn’t
function the problem was that the
engineers behind this weird-looking
spaceship a few months before it took
off got worried that the steering
rockets would actually burn through the
skin of the spaceship some of these
steering rockets were kind of pointed
close to parts of the skin so they put
these shields on it they keep the
steering deflect the rocket exhaust so
if they can get you know burn through
the skin and those shields worked really
well at the flexing the rocket exhaust
it also worked really well at reflecting
the radio signals and at certain angles
it would screw up the radio
communications guess which angles
the earth is like right here when you’re
trying to land on the moon they had
never done that before
right little things can kill you a
couple of pieces of sheet metal can kill
you and you know here’s a here’s a
machine that has two million parts
somebody puts a couple of pieces of
sheet metal on it and it almost fails
why did their computer crash their
computer crashed because I had a couple
of different modes one mode was tracked
the ground that’s the mode it should
have been in right pay no attention
anything else tracked the grounds the
mode it was actually in there was a
switch you could select the mode the
mode it was actually in was tracked the
ground and the mothership at the same
time well it turned out it couldn’t
actually do that and started fall behind
because the switch was in the wrong
place right switch is in the wrong place
that can kill you couple of pieces of
sheet metal can kill you why were they
off course they had this pinpoint
landing picked out how did they get off
course for that we need to go a few
hours before the landing when these two
spaceships were hooked together when
they were hooked together there was like
a tunnel that ran between them so the
people could go back and forth and when
they were getting ready to separate they
closed the hatch at one end of the
tunnel close the hatch at the other end
and what they were supposed to do was
pump all the air out of that tunnel well
maybe they’re in a hurry maybe their
minds were on other things didn’t quite
get all of the air out of the tunnel so
when they separated there was a puff of
air that changed the speed of the lander
by one kilometer per hour thing is going
1,700 kilometers per hour and it gets
bumped and so that speed changes by one
kilometer per hour what possible
difference could one kilometer per hour
make over two hours two kilometers the
distance between a nice flat boring
landing site and the crater of death
right little things can kill you but you
know what else
the reason they overcame the thing the
little things that almost killed this
effort was trust think about the people
in Mission Control when Armstrong he
turned off the autopilot they did not
radio up to him
Neal you’ve turned off your targeting
computer what’s the matter
they simply they simply you know went
trusted him
when the computer crashed
Armstrong asked Mission Control Mission
Control asked Steve bales Steve bales
basically trusted Margaret Hamilton and
our software this was a chain of trust a
quarter of a million miles long right
Trust is what overcame the little things
that went wrong there’s also I think
something we can learn about leadership
you need real leadership to do something
like this you need real leadership to do
the kind of stuff we do but in
particular you need to know the
difference between a leader and a hero I
think we in the software industry we
spend too much of our time worrying
about heroes and heroics and what we
really need are leaders like take this
picture
as an American I got to tell you I look
at this picture every time and it grabs
me right it’s very heroic and that’s the
problem with it it looks like it was
perfect it looks like there was this guy
and he flew this perfect trip to the
moon and he got out and he took this
lovely picture and it was all flawless
we know that’s not the case we know that
this was thing was a struggle every step
of the way I like instead of this
picture you know what I like I like the
shutdown checklist
I like the shutdown checklist because it
speaks to me of leadership right these
are the words of two guys trying to get
the job done at the end of a really bad
day I like these words especially it
makes me feel closer to this thing
because these are the kind of thing this
is the kind of mumbo-jumbo jargon that
we speak to each other with all the time
right our jargon is a little different
than this jargon but it’s the same kind
of incomprehensible nonsense right I
could be saying something almost this
incomprehensible bit as this when I go
to work you you to these are the words
of people like us you know what else
these are these are the first word
spoken from another world I like that
they’re real words I like that they’re
people trying to finish the job that’s
something to remember that’s leadership
and that that kind of brings me to the
bigger lessons I think of the moon
landing and I think the big lesson of
the moon landing starts with the idea
that when you do something technically
difficult something technically cool you
cannot predict the outcome right and so
for example we went to the moon
to win the cold war and kick the
Russians butts and a funny thing
happened on the way to the moon funny
thing happened on the way to the moon we
look back we looked over our shoulder
and we saw that we see ourselves we saw
a place in the universe now I know for
maybe everybody here most of you anyway
pictures like this they’re just kind of
part of the wallpaper you seen them a
thousand times right they don’t even
register anymore people put them on
t-shirts they’re the backgrounds on
computers I would like for you to try to
imagine that you have gotten to a
certain point in your life having never
seen a picture like this before and then
one day somebody comes and slaps it down
in front of you how would it make you
feel what would you say I can tell you
you say holy mother of God that’s
everything that’s all of us it’s all
we’ve ever known that is every birthday
it’s every first day of school it’s
every graduation it’s every first date
it’s every love-affair – every marriage
it’s every wedding anniversary it’s
every funeral it’s every birthday so all
we are it’s everything we’ve ever known
it’s beautiful it’s tiny it’s out there
in the black and then you think for a
second and you think maybe we should
take care of it
it’s no coincidence in my opinion that
pictures like this coincide almost
exactly with modern environmentalism as
a mass political movement you look at
the picture and it just comes to you
right
do something difficult you do something
technically sweet and you cannot predict
the outcome which and that kind of
brings me to what I think of is the big
lesson kind of the why lesson of the
story and it’s something I have a hard
time putting into words and mostly I
think of it as a conversation I think of
it as maybe you and I go out and have a
beer you think we could find a beer in
Berlin you and I go out and have a beer
and maybe one of us it doesn’t matter
which has an idea and it doesn’t matter
what the idea is maybe you want to get
rich selling pet food on the internet
maybe I want to create a new programming
language or a database or something
doesn’t matter right now maybe you’re
against the idea and so you’re trying to
argue me out of the idea and you could
tell me it’s a bad idea you know no one
will be interested or it won’t you know
it won’t make any money and sure we
could talk about that you could tell me
that maybe they’ll just make society
more unfair that it’ll be bad for people
and sure you know we could talk about
that or it’ll make your hair fall out of
your teeth right I don’t know you know
and we’re gonna talk about all these
things the one thing you can’t tell me
one thing I just won’t believe is that
it is not possible
I just won’t believe you see I’m
familiar with the impossible I saw it on
a TV when I was a kid for me the
ultimate lesson of Apollo is that when
you do something hard when you do
something technically sweet well
congratulations you have the thing great
but there’s this other effect that goes
out from it it’s like a wave it’s a wave
of belief if she can do that maybe I can
do that it’s a it makes people believe
in the possibilities if he can do that
maybe I can do something like that makes
people believe in themselves I can do it
I know this for a fact I know this for a
fact because I am the result of one of
those ways I am a child of Apollo I sat
on that couch and my life changed it got
off of whatever path have had been on
and it got on a different path a path
that led me to the University and to
engineering and programming a little
while after that to writing books and a
little while after that to being here
with you this morning for me the
ultimate lesson of Apollo really has
very little to do with space travel or
astronauts or any of that stuff and it
has everything to do with belief now I
said that the story belongs to you and
it does but the story comes with a
challenge and challenge is to do the
best thing to build the best thing that
you possibly can you build it because
it’s worth building you build it because
it will inspire your co-workers you
build it because it will inspire the
people coming up through the profession
behind you you build it for the next
bunch of 10 year olds so for me the
ultimate lesson of Apollo is all the way
back so the words that started it all
all those decades ago we choose to go to
the moon not because it’s easy but
because it’s hard go do something hard
thank you
you
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