News out of Armstong, another loss

Ken Iliff, husband of Mary Shafer, died one week ago:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstron...pioneer-passes

There was significant overlap in careers.

I only knew him through his writing. His book 'From Runway to Orbit' was an excellent read, yet a small fraction of his legacy. The title he picked for his epilogue was Stairway To Heaven (https://books.google.com/books?id=8QLGRq793Y4C&pg=PA339)
One might imagine that this is his current activity.

I hope those close to him are handling the loss ok. Ken and Mary met while at grad school in UCLA right around the peak of the Apollo Program.

His book is about his aerospace career, but he also tells the story of how when the first internet message was sent from UCLA, he was sitting two offices away:

"To me, it seemed like a very peculiar thing to do, breaking up what a computer could do very well by itself into little packets, shipping them to other computers, and having other computers reassemble the packets and do the work." "I've always remembered that event as something I probably should have given a little more attention." (from p115,pdf135of424)

~ CT

Fred J. McCall is guilty of
as of 1/12/2016 3:06:35 AM
Stuf4 wrote:

Ken Iliff, husband of Mary Shafer, died one week ago:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstron...pioneer-passes

There was significant overlap in careers.

I only knew him through his writing. His book 'From Runway to Orbit' was an
excellent read, yet a small fraction of his legacy. The title he picked for
his epilogue was Stairway To Heaven
(https://books.google.com/books?id=8QLGRq793Y4C&pg=PA339) One might imagine
that this is his current activity.

I hope those close to him are handling the loss ok. Ken and Mary met while
at grad school in UCLA right around the peak of the Apollo Program.

His book is about his aerospace career, but he also tells the story of how
when the first internet message was sent from UCLA, he was sitting two
offices away:

"To me, it seemed like a very peculiar thing to do, breaking up what a
computer could do very well by itself into little packets, shipping them to
other computers, and having other computers reassemble the packets and do
the work." "I've always remembered that event as something I probably
should have given a little more attention." (from p115,pdf135of424)

~ CT

I'm very sorry to hear this. I never knew him, but I definitely
remember (and miss) Mary. My deepest sympathies to the family.

My thoughts, too.

/dps

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013

On Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 2:25:45 AM UTC-5, Stuf4 wrote:
Ken Iliff, husband of Mary Shafer, died one week ago:

Also sorry to hear this news. My contact with this newsgroup (well maybe it was just sci.space back then) went dark around the time it took off so I never got to know Mary Shafer back in the day. My day pre-dated that day. Before newsgroups got to be so popular and a very early and primitive form of a "social network".

I missed a lot and I could have learned a lot from her posts. My condolences nonetheless.

David Spain

Fred J. McCall writes:


I'm very sorry to hear this. I never knew him, but I definitely
remember (and miss) Mary. My deepest sympathies to the family.

Who has been in bad shape herself. She had a failed knee
replacement, and was hospitalized for 10+ months while they
fought a vicious infection of same. Last I heard they were
putting in some very simple knee so she could move at all.

I don't know her status now.


--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

David Lesher formulated the question :
Fred J. McCall writes:


I'm very sorry to hear this. I never knew him, but I definitely
remember (and miss) Mary. My deepest sympathies to the family.

Who has been in bad shape herself. She had a failed knee
replacement, and was hospitalized for 10+ months while they
fought a vicious infection of same. Last I heard they were
putting in some very simple knee so she could move at all.

I don't know her status now.

She posted a simple statement on FB recently, mentioning a "Celebration
of Life" event for Ken.

/dps

--
"What do you think of my cart, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?
Well hung: curricle-hung in fact. Come sit by me and we'll test the
springs."
(Speculative fiction by H.Lacedaemonian.)