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Lost in space? There’s an app for that, thanks to Janesville native

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Mathew T. Benson

Matt Benson was the kid who stayed in for recess so he could play on the computers.

Today, he’s an engineer whose work will fly into space on the shuttle’s final mission. The mission is scheduled to launch today.

The Janesville native spoke to the Gazette this week from Florida, where he coordinated final details with NASA officials and will watch the launch with his wife and children.

Benson spent the last four months figuring out how to use an iPhone 4 to help astronauts.

Benson wrote a software application for the iPhone that could help astronauts establish their position. A spacecraft can’t navigate if it doesn’t know where it is, Benson said, so establishing the position is crucial.

Spacecraft have multiple systems for establishing their positions, so this would be the backup to the backup to the backup, he said. Still, if systems fail, an astronaut could pull the phone out of a pocket and figure out how to get home.

The shuttle Atlantis will deliver the phone to the International Space Station, where experiments in coming months will help prove that what Benson built will actually work.

The app takes the user through a series of steps, using the phone’s camera and other technology. The phones feature a three-axis gyro and accelerometer, which here on earth allows the user to play video games. With Benson’s software, they can help astronauts who are lost in space.

Benson, whose day job is working on NASA’s next-generation vehicle, Orion, worked on the iPhone project in his spare time.

Writing the computer code and creating related hardware took about four months. That’s an eyeblink compared with the time it normally takes to get a piece of technology into space. For example, Benson’s been working on space projects for eight years, and this is the first time any of his work is leaving the planet.

Benson, 38, grew up in Janesville, the son of Don, a bus driver for Van Galder Bus, and Barb, a self-employed accountant.

The Apple IIE computers at school caught his attention early on, and he remembers asking for and getting an Atari computer for Christmas one year.

He was always focused on computers as a career, he said, but it wasn’t until he got to Craig High School that he became interested in physics.

He remembers being in teacher Don Casanova’s physics class, where in one experiment students calculated the flight path of a ball bearing as it fell.

“For the first time, I was like, ‘Oh wow, this stuff is not magic. It has rules that are governed by mathematics,’” Benson said.

Benson’s interest in physics landed him his dream job with Boeing, working on the International Space Station. He moved to Houston in 2003.

He had attended UW-Rock County before going to UW-Whitewater, where he earned a double bachelor’s degree in computer-systems management and physics. That combination got him the job.

“I had sent a resume in at the right time and the right place, and I got the right person. He was looking for someone that had a background in software and also hardware or physics,” Benson recalled. “I was very lucky.”

Today, Benson writes software for spacecraft guidance and navigation systems. The company Benson works for, Odyssey Space Research, works on the Orion project but also on the Dragon, a private space vehicle being developed by space transport company Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

There will be more work when the iPhone returns to Earth. Meanwhile, Benson is excited to be working on Orion, the first manned craft the United States will produce since the shuttle was built.

Benson said he’s not cut out to be an astronaut and will never get into space, but he’s proud that a part of him will.

“As one of my co-workers likes to say, he’s never been up in space, but his DNA has,” Benson said. “He puts his blood, sweat and tears into the work he does, and it’s the same with me.

“My DNA is going up, if not literally, at least figuratively.”

Song has local flavor

There’s another local connection to the space shuttle launch today, and it comes in the form of a song.

Performing at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will be country music singer/songwriter Ansel Brown.

Brown will perform a song that he and his wife, the former Lisa Wixom of Janesville, wrote. It’s called “When You Fly.”

Brown is quoted in a news release as saying: “I wrote a song with my wife, Lisa, about flying and daring to dream. To me this song is perfect in explaining that NASA will continue daring to dream.”