A Quote by John M. Grunsfeld
There's a perspective that I've gained as an astronaut that I didn't get from my science activities. In my science activities, I learned by the seat of my pants. Spending 17 years as an astronaut, I learned the NASA formalism of systems engineering as if my life depended on it. Literally.
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The whole Hubble program has just been a fabulous testament to the NASA science community and the NASA astronaut community.
Every astronaut flew into space for a living. But while NASA has not solved the security problems, I would not put me back into a shuttle - and no other astronaut. The confidence is shaken.
At the age of six, I declared that I wanted to be an astronaut. My mother thought that was just fine, as it would encourage me to learn science, and besides, there really was no chance I would ever actually become an astronaut.
I had always been interested in the space program, and I didn't know if I could be an astronaut like I'd dreamt about when I was a little kid - to me it sounded kind of silly, someone grow up to be an astronaut - but, when I was in my 20s, I thought maybe I can get a job with NASA or a contractor, do something with the space program.
I progressed through my schooling, undergraduate and graduate degrees, excited about math and science and engineering, but really didn't think about being an astronaut at that point. It was kind of unreachable.
The most important steps that I followed were studying math and science in school. I was always interested in physics and astronomy and chemistry and I continued to study those subjects through high school and college on into graduate school. That's what prepared me for being an astronaut; it actually gave me the qualifications to be selected to be an astronaut.
I loved being a test pilot, and so being an astronaut was - was not my end point in, you know, either I achieved success by being an astronaut, or if I don't get picked, I'm not successful. I loved my career as a pilot, and it was a bonus to be selected as an astronaut.
You can get control of your tasks and activities only to the degree that you stop doing some things and start spending more time on the few activities that can really make a difference in your life.
Everyone in the astronaut program has a degree in a science field. The crew are the ones who do the experiments, help to design some of the experiments that come from other primary researchers. So it becomes very important that you have a science background.
I ran the astronaut school for six years, and I was the commandant and when I finished in '65, 26 of my guys went into space as NASA astronauts that I trained.
Once you establish what activities your company needs to do, the next question is, 'How do these activities get accomplished?' i.e. what resources do I need to make the activities happen?
You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one.
As a youngster, I read of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. As a student, I wrote English reports on science fiction. And as a fighter pilot, I observed the selection of the Mercury astronauts. All this was fascinating, but I really didn't think I would ever be a part of it. It was only when my good friend Ed White was selected as a Gemini astronaut that I decided to join NASA as part of the Apollo program.
Is there any other job that beats being an astronaut? Who didn't want to be an astronaut? That is my question.
I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I grew up in Houston. Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut.
I'm somebody who doesn't feel the need to be in the driver's seat all the time. I appreciate the perspective of being in the passenger's seat sometimes, and I feel fortunate for that because I've learned a lot from that perspective.
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