Susan Black

Titusville, Florida

PROGRAMS:

U.S. Space Shuttle Program

COMPANIES:

LOCATIONS:

Kennedy Space Center (Florida)
Vought Systems (Grand Prairie, Texas (previously known as, "LTV"))

POSITIONS:

Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer

COMMENTS:

Daughter of Kendrick Oneal Black (Quality Control) and Mary Sue (Turner) Black. Sister of Shannon Kendrick Black (LCC) and sister-in-law of Jean (Boyles) Black.

Married Clark Louis Highsmith. Mother of Benjamin. Sister-in-law of Charlotte (Highsmith) Marsch and Kent Edward Highsmith. Aunt of Gloria, Rachel, Joslyn, and Gabe. Just before marrying, transferred to Vought Systems as a Senior Software Engineer (SW/IT support of engineer hardware, programs, and platforms including Linux).

Susan was a graduate of the University of North Florida. She began work at the Kennedy Space Center, for Lockheed Martin (LM), in 1990, and was assigned to the System Build group. Beginning in Complex-D and, later, the PCC, Susan supported GPS engineers and Test Conductors with the creation and support of what would ultimately become each shuttle flight’s T-20 tape (which was used for all shuttle launches). She became an employee of the United Space Alliance when LM was required by NASA to renew its KSC contract in cooperation with other KSC entities.

Knowing of her college major and minor (CompSci/Music), Susan was eventually moved into the coding-side of launch support in order to work on the hoped for control-room rework (aka, Apollo) system (which was an attempt to move from the older HIMS and FEPS to a newer terrabyte system). Susan worked, coding hundreds of thousands of lines of code with her co-workers, in Unix, C, PL-SQL (Oracle), Motif, TSS Tex, and GOAL — through out her various years of support.

On the social side of KSC, Susan was a part of the KSC Bible Study crew, who met in the PCC for study, prayer, lunch, and a time of fellowship on a regular basis. Susan was also a member of the KSC Carolers and had the pleasure of performing before heads of companies and employees alike, at NASA HQ, the LCC, the OSB, and in various other places and other space-related groups and meetings — including for astronaut Robert L. Crippen and his wife.

Supporting and seeing the history of space exploration — and all the science that resulted — was amazing and such a privilege. To hear and feel a launch, to know that launch products (fire retardants, health assists, and health monitors) ultimately become helps at home, to be able to sit in the flight seat of the Shuttle Endeavor, to stand in the VAB in awe of its size, to sit at the Test Conductors station during a launch — all such amazing experiences! When in college, I dreamed of such opportunities and it was wonderful to see those dreams come true, and to work for such hard-working, amazing, dedicated, and — yes, fun and crazy — co-workers.