Properties of a Pocket Calculator for Astronauts

[Gene222]

(09-11-2019 05:04 AM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  To my knowledge those programs have never surfaced so there's no records of them anywhere, is that correct? I see a great opportunity for SlideRule here ! ;-)

Somehow I seem to remember that the Time Module was developed to meet a NASA request, but from the description above the calculators didn't have it. Perhaps it was used in a subsequent mission then.

There is an old forum message entitled "HP41 and Space Shuttle" by Rupert on 12 Oct 1999 about trying to find the HP 41 software used by Shuttle astronauts. (I can't create a working link to this archived post.) One HP Museum member said he spent several years tracking down HP 41 shuttle software (see post number 5) and has some HP 67 and HP 41 programs for calculating satellite and orbit adjustments, but he did not post those programs. He mentioned that he does know someone that has copies of the shuttle programs. So, some of the shuttle programs are out there - somewhere.

[Added] The same poster mentioned that the astronauts had to buy their own calculators and write their own programs, presumably on the HP 41. This does not seem so far fetched as NASA flight planning aids had to write their own orbital flight programs as shown in the Introduction to Orbital Flight Planning workbook in the previous post.