posted on Mar, 15 2010 @ 07:12 AM
Welcome to ATS. On the internet nobody knows your a dog, funny New Yorker tag line in a comic from a ways back that might apply here.
My father worked for 22 years at Nasa, my Grandfather worked as a test pilot for two large companies and also worked for Nasa. I have been around NASA
people all my life. Pilots, astronauts, engineers...and there is one thing I have to say about that......they are no smarter on this subject than the
average internet citizen. Plain and simple. None of them know squat more about it than anybody here on this very board.
In fact, I do a decent amount of subcontracting work in the defense/aerospace industry and have to say that, in my experience, most of the Nasa
engineers are horrible to work with. Not because they are demanding, because they ask for the most ridiculous stuff to be done for them, when in the
end a college engineering dropout even knows what they are asking for has no bearing on the results of the product they are interested in. After they
waste a bunch of time and money (none of it theirs) they simply shrug it off and go on about their original path (the one a college dropout could have
drawn for them).
Am I being harsh, no sir. I am just relating my experience with Nasa. I thought I was alone, but for years at all the trade shows and conferences I
attend my colleagues (most are competitors but we are all friendly towards each other) even bring it up and laugh about it. So at least it's not just
me, lol.
Also, your introductory post smacks of the type of "look at me" syndrome many interested in this subject suffer from. You come on here, act ignorant
and sheepish about how the community works, as if your new to all of this crazy internet fad...say your from Nasa and that your here to "share"
stuff...of course a little at a time....no reason to share what you have up front, lol.
I am not going to doubt your from Nasa, but I'm not going to get shivers running up my legs like many of the schoolgirls here either at the mere
thought of the tales your going to tell and spin.
There is a saying I hear a lot in my line of work...."if you can't do, teach...and if you can't teach go work for the government." This is true
for Nasa as well.....many engineers worth their salt can earn WAY more money in the private sector so the best go there. I didn't figure this out
until I was a little older, or I would have asked my Dad why he worked there for so long and didn't get a higher paying job outside of
government....but now that I think about it, I did see my dad get his hand stuck in a pickle jar once reaching for a quarter he dropped in
there.........so yeah, in retrospect I can see how he was fit for lifelong government employment positions.