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Some people...
Nov. 21st, 2000 08:26 pmThe second day of execute package support was pretty uneventful for most of the day. Then, at about 4 pm, the world caved in, and a pile of hitherto hidden "radiograms" surfaced, begging to be translated. Naturally, everyone and his brother and sister wanted the translations...and quickly, too. Meanwhile, nobody thought too much of carrying on within earshot of the hired translation help about boyfriends/girlfriends and what they were going to do this Thanksgiving.
No biggie. The newly arrived documents allowed me to focus completely on the task at hand for the last couple of hours of the day, and beyond. It helped take my mind off understanding that - despite an extraordinarily high concentration of competent people at NASA - there are nonetheless some folks who...well...amaze me with their lack of knowledge. Then again, for there to be successes, there must be those who wash out, too.
Case in point: A young man who, working in a responsible position among the operations planners, suddenly notices that the station has lost 10 nautical miles of altitude. "How come?" he asks. His twenty-something female partner hasn't the foggiest idea. Ye gods. Do we know the difference between "apogee" and "perigee"? Are we aware that orbits are, as a rule, not circular, and thus, variations in altitude are normal?
Then again, maybe I'm being too hard on the kids.
For some reason, this reminds me of a story line that I've been threatening to expand into a work of fiction. It involves a group of nomads who have spent their entire life wandering the land, and who finally come upon a shoreline. After an hour or two, they notice that the water level is rising. Their concern mounts. The water continues to rise, and an emergency council is convened. The council, under pressure from alarmists who believe the water is about to rise over the land and drown them all, decides that the only proper thing to do is to sacrifice all of the first-born of the group. Having done the grisly deed, the elders watch the waters recede. Satisfied with their sagacity, the group rapidly departs back into the interior, to tell all of their adventure and of the terrible price paid to save the world.
In the meantime, the tide continues to rise and fall, as it has for the past several million years.
(How I got from one idea to the other is, well, a mystery!)
Cheers...
Hmmm.
No biggie. The newly arrived documents allowed me to focus completely on the task at hand for the last couple of hours of the day, and beyond. It helped take my mind off understanding that - despite an extraordinarily high concentration of competent people at NASA - there are nonetheless some folks who...well...amaze me with their lack of knowledge. Then again, for there to be successes, there must be those who wash out, too.
Case in point: A young man who, working in a responsible position among the operations planners, suddenly notices that the station has lost 10 nautical miles of altitude. "How come?" he asks. His twenty-something female partner hasn't the foggiest idea. Ye gods. Do we know the difference between "apogee" and "perigee"? Are we aware that orbits are, as a rule, not circular, and thus, variations in altitude are normal?
Then again, maybe I'm being too hard on the kids.
For some reason, this reminds me of a story line that I've been threatening to expand into a work of fiction. It involves a group of nomads who have spent their entire life wandering the land, and who finally come upon a shoreline. After an hour or two, they notice that the water level is rising. Their concern mounts. The water continues to rise, and an emergency council is convened. The council, under pressure from alarmists who believe the water is about to rise over the land and drown them all, decides that the only proper thing to do is to sacrifice all of the first-born of the group. Having done the grisly deed, the elders watch the waters recede. Satisfied with their sagacity, the group rapidly departs back into the interior, to tell all of their adventure and of the terrible price paid to save the world.
In the meantime, the tide continues to rise and fall, as it has for the past several million years.
(How I got from one idea to the other is, well, a mystery!)
Cheers...
Hmmm.
