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From: lfa@timbuk.cray.com (Lou Adornato)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Galileo Astronauts Honored at JPL
Message-ID: <5893@timbuk.cray.com>
Date: 8 Dec 89 21:17:58 GMT
References: <2289@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <24627@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: lfa@timbuk.UUCP (Lou Adornato)
Followup-To: sci.space
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Lines: 44

In article <24627@cup.portal.com> fleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) writes:
>>Time was then set aside for the
>>JPL employees to chat with the astronauts and to get their autographs.
>  
>...Just think about this sentence for a second...
> 
>I'm not a basher of the individual astronauts; I'd love to be one.
>But the thought of people at JPL, the *real* space-science heroes
>of the last couple of decades, clustering around a bunch of
>Right-Stuffers like teenage groupies...
> 

How do you define hero?  I consider a hero to be someone who is willing to make
the ultimate sacrifice for something he/she sees as bigger than him/herself.
Doing your job well isn't grounds for hero worship, it's grounds for a pay
raise.  The folks at JPL do a fantastic job, and are entitled to respect and
admiration (and _really_ nice pay raises), but their pesonal risk is limited
to VDT syndrome, or keyboard wrist.  Have we become so mired in the workaday
world that we truly feel that exceeding your job description and risking your
life are the same thing?

My father was one of the more than 300,000 people to work on the Apollo
program; he helped design and build the mobile launch pads for Apollo
(and now the shuttle).  I'm proud as hell of that, but I don't consider
him a hero for it.

I remember when the Apollo 1 fire happened.  It was like we had lost three
family members.  Same for every family I knew.  I remember my father, an
incredibly stoic man, fighting back the tears as the story unfolded of the
deaths of these three "Right-Stuffers" that he had never met.

Wait a minute...What the hell am I talking about?  

This isn't an us/them issue.  The point is that the crew and the JPL staff are
on the same side, and if the JPL staff wants to idolize the people who actually
go where JPL can only observe, then I'm glad they got the chance.  I'm pretty
sure that there was no display of weapons involved; no one was forced to get an
autograph under threat of reprisals.  I hope some of the crew asked for
autographs from the JPL folks.  Maybe someone got a Voyager or Gallileo
signature.

Lou Adornato    |  Statements herein do not represent the opinions or attitudes 
Cray Research   |  of Cray Research, Inc. or its subsidiaries.
lfa@cray.com    |       (...yet)