Developing A Work Plan: Fill & Download for Free

No, there is no truth to that story. NASA paid $2.95 per space pen, simply by purchasing them from the Fisher Pen Co. as any regular customer could do. The Fisher Pen Co. designed and built their famous space pen without any involvement of NASA.Even today, fifty years later, both astronauts and cosmonauts often use regular mechanical pencils, pens, and markers.

​​The most annoying thing about being a programmer is working with non technical people (Managers) who don't know shit about how painful the process can be, yet assume it is a very simple process.You find your self working as a single developer in a startup that wants to build "the next facebook". They first pretend, all they needed are basic features.They want it completed in one month, and launch the next week.You are taking orders from all the cofounders, in random sequence. There is absolutely nothing on paper, as a working plan.Two weeks into the project, they want most of the current features in facebook. Few days later one of them had already borrowed some features from twitter which he wants included without any prior discussing with his partners.Three weeks into the project they realize that some features of facebook are no longer necessary for the project - you are asked to discard. The company is already out their annoucing to the world they are launching in a week time. You naively work day in day out, have not completed 40% of your "not well defined" requirement. By fourth week, every body is on your neck, hammering on launching.You try to explain why it won't be possible to launch, considering:incomplete featuresbugssecurity concerncost of continuing development on a live platform.Then every body is looking at you as a failure, a kill joy. Then you naively follow their rants and instructions, and launch the next facebook.----The problem has just begun----

NASA is not developing a warp drive.A researcher at a NASA facility published a theoretical paper about warp drive and mentioned that NASA's Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory was working on a warp field interferometer that can measure spacetime disturbances. That story got blown out of proportion in the media. There is a big difference between an interferometer and an engine.APPL is tasked with examining theoretical propulsion technologies to see which ones could be brought to practical use in the near future, as NASA examines its options for outer solar system exploration. They are looking at the physics behind a lot of ideas - that doesn't mean they are building engines.