#1 Don’t Panic. #2 #3 Safety. “Safety third. There’s not even a Rule Number Two. But even though there’s nothing in second place, safety is not getting promoted to number two.” Elon Musk’s family rules show a mature understanding of the fallacy of ‘safety first’. There’s lots of other good stuff in this long Rolling Stone interview 30 November 2017.
There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety. John Glenn, first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, on this day 1962. Maybe true for pioneering test pilots, less so for us regular pilots. Original NASA photo from a camera aboard the Mercury-Atlas 6 spaceflight captures Glenn as he uses a photometer to view a sunset.
I just finished the great book Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino. (It came out earlier this month, hardcopy, kindle, iBooks.) It’s an easy engaging read, the personal story of his cool travels through colleges, companies, and on to two amazing Hubble rescue missions on the Space Shuttle. Best astronaut book I’ve read in a while. Along the way, ‘Mass’ shares some of the secrets learnt getting a PhD from MIT, learning to be an astronaut, and actually fixing the Hubble telescope in high Earth orbit. Here are some of my … Continue reading Spaceman Mike Massimino
