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Question of the Day - July 15th!
- Thread starter bnwalker2
- Start Date
I'd go in a heartbeat if I could take my boyfriend and my baby cats. Besides, I think they'd be just adorable in little tiny space suits
Maybe one day.......
Disclosure: I'm an aerospace engineer. I worked on the Shuttle and a bunch of other launch systems.
So my answer is, "It depends." Let me be part of the team designing and building the launch, vehicle, and recovery systems, back me up with the support I and the other engineers need to do the job right, get the correct operations personnel, let the folks who run the show do it right, and I'll be the first one in line to get measured up for a jump suit.
Scamp the necessaries, or let Congress decide what sort of booster we need to use because of an artificial spending limit, or strip managers of the ability to manage because you'd rather run your space agency as a jobs program, well, I'll stay with my keyboard and ground-bound telescopes.
To be honest, I'm more excited about designing and building the stuff and seeing others fly on it safely than I am in flying myself. There's a reason I stuck with engineering even though I was getting heavy hints that I should apply to be an astronaut when I was younger. No lack of fortitude on my part--it'd be easier to be the one that buys it than being the one left behind wondering if it was your screw-up that made someone else auger in or whatever. I just like designing the thing, getting it built, and watching it come alive.
Someone once asked Maxime Faget why he never attended a launch, he replied something along the lines of he wasn't interested because the real work was already done. That's sort of how I feel, though I love being at a launch, or a test firing of a rocket motor or engine. I like following the data as something I've been part of making flies. It's the payoff for those hours you put in, continuously chanting the aerospace workers' mantra: "Please, God, don't let me ---- up."
There, is that an "engineer" enough answer?
So my answer is, "It depends." Let me be part of the team designing and building the launch, vehicle, and recovery systems, back me up with the support I and the other engineers need to do the job right, get the correct operations personnel, let the folks who run the show do it right, and I'll be the first one in line to get measured up for a jump suit.
Scamp the necessaries, or let Congress decide what sort of booster we need to use because of an artificial spending limit, or strip managers of the ability to manage because you'd rather run your space agency as a jobs program, well, I'll stay with my keyboard and ground-bound telescopes.
To be honest, I'm more excited about designing and building the stuff and seeing others fly on it safely than I am in flying myself. There's a reason I stuck with engineering even though I was getting heavy hints that I should apply to be an astronaut when I was younger. No lack of fortitude on my part--it'd be easier to be the one that buys it than being the one left behind wondering if it was your screw-up that made someone else auger in or whatever. I just like designing the thing, getting it built, and watching it come alive.
Someone once asked Maxime Faget why he never attended a launch, he replied something along the lines of he wasn't interested because the real work was already done. That's sort of how I feel, though I love being at a launch, or a test firing of a rocket motor or engine. I like following the data as something I've been part of making flies. It's the payoff for those hours you put in, continuously chanting the aerospace workers' mantra: "Please, God, don't let me ---- up."
There, is that an "engineer" enough answer?
I'd go for the
But if I found none, I'd soon come home!
But if I found none, I'd soon come home!
