Re: On July 20.1969.....

From: Al Jackson (aajiv_at_flash.net)
Date: 07/20/04 

Date: 20 Jul 2004 02:35:31 -0700

Rand Simberg <simberg@interglobal.org> wrote in message news:<p_HKc.6994$mL5.4344@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
> Al Jackson wrote:

> >
> >
> Al, on this thirty-fifth anniversary, I want to thank you and your
> colleagues for the role you all played in our first venture to another
> world. I was too young to participate, but I was in awe.

Thanks Rand!

I sometimes look back at the way we worked in those days, I have not
worked
in operations for 30 years now, 5 was enough!
There is a ton more structure over in training and mission control
than when
I was doing it. Becoming certified and all that jazz, we didn't do it
that way
then. I see nothing wrong with that, but its funny as I look around me
at JSC, still working in manned space flight, day to day, things get
done pretty much the same way they did 35 years ago. Just with more
work-a-day overhead.
Down in the trenches, be it the operations people or the engineering
folk,
I see young people working their butts off. Putting in un-paid
overtime,
long hours, working at home , just doing a lot of stuff because they
love it.

Work-a-day stuff in manned spaceflight does not make for 'movie'
material.
(Tho they did a job with Apollo 13.)
I always get a laugh out of films were people are supposedly working
at Nasa
in white on white labs with a lot of fancy lights and a calculated
ambiance.
When you see the real thing, its offices and cubicals with too many
people stuffed into them, kind of shabby looking , sometimes with beat
up grey ghost desks , book cases and file cabinets... not glamorous at
all.
But then you stop and think, gee there are only a few people in the
whole world
doing what I am doing.
So it goes.....

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