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Comment by inopinatus | Hacker News Reader

I’m trying to think of a more asinine and performative reason than revoking a job offer because the youthful recipient flung a few profanities around in celebration of the moment. This is how you preserve a monoculture, folks.

In followup, the advisory board member in question, evidently not such a stick-up-the-ass authoritarian as NASA’s decision makers, was dismayed by the revocation not the exuberance.

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>In followup, the advisory board member in question, evidently not such a stick-up-the-ass authoritarian as NASA’s decision makers, was dismayed by the revocation not the exuberance.

Yep, I did a quick Google too.

Full quote: "I learned she had lost her offer for an internship with NASA. This I had nothing to do with nor could I since I do not hire and fire at the agency or have any say on employment whatsoever. As it turned out, it was due to the NASA hashtag her friends used that called the agency's attention to it long after my comments were gone," Hickam wrote in a blog post Tuesday.

Hickam also shared that he is "certain she deserves a position in the aerospace industry and I'm doing all I can to secure her one that will be better than she lost," and has "talked to the folks that had to do with her internship and made absolutely certain that there will be no black mark on her record."

I sent HH an email out of the blue a few years ago with my thoughts on why the space shuttle was not a good design, and he was kind enough to write a nice reply. So I've always thought well of him.

Things like him replying are what fosters future scientists/thinkers IMO. Passion should be nurtured.

Would it be ok to ask you your thoughts about the space shuttle? Is that weird? I really apologize if so.

I told him that obviously the critical expense of getting to orbit was weight. (Of course, I didn't actually tell him anything he didn't know.) Wings, rudder and landing gear are heavy and expensive and are only useful for the last few seconds of flight. All that dead weight did was subtract from what the machine could do in orbit. I said the only thing one really needed to bring back was the crew, and an Apollo capsule would do just fine for that.

He agreed, and said he'd argued similarly.

Musk had an even better idea. Bring the ordinary booster rocket back without wings, rudder, or landing gear by using a bit of extra fuel at the last moment to kiss the landing pad rather than smash it. That empty tin balloon of a booster isn't going to fall that fast or need that much fuel to do it.

Right on, I appreciate it. I can't believe even HH was arguing for this stuff and NASA was just like 'eh'.

I don't like Elon, his methods, or his companies, but I am grateful for the progress his engineers have wrought!

Also have you seen the launches in person? Here we have some that look like glowing floating balls of plasma. When SpaceX was first doing tests everyone was outside thinking it was aliens or a bomb, it was that far outside anything people had ever seen before.

I like Elon, his methods, and his companies. He's a grown up Tom Swift. If he was a science fiction character, I'd dismiss him as unbelievable. I hope he gets to Mars before I run out of time.

I can definitely appreciate that. Maybe I should restrict my feelings to the man himself and not his job and his companies.

I met him while I was in high school and spent an hour or so talking to him with a few other students. Great guy!

One the one hand it's sad, on the other hand I understand why they did it. Astronauts are, for better or worse, the public face and PR of NASA, which is a an agency subject to social and political winds of the times, but has for the most part placed itself apolitically and kept astronauts as heroes that both sides can agree on (as long as we can forget a short period where adult diapers where in the public consciousness).

The thing that makes it such and achievement (that it's a select group of exceptional people) is also the thing that puts extra expectations on how you can act or what you can be involved in. It might be better if it were not that way, but the reality is that astronauts are not chosen based on skill and capability alone.

Perhaps they're chosen for their ability to cuss like a sailor in the cockpit? (John Young and Gene Cernan both served in the navy)

https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap10fj/as10-day1-pt2-earthorbit...

Thomas Stafford drops plenty of F-bombs in the Apollo–Soyuz mission transcripts too, which are faithfully recorded in the NASA archives for posterity.

I like these stories, but I think this is more a hallmark of a bygone era. If I remember correctly, the average age of NASA during Apollo was mid-twenties. Now (at least in certain orgs within the agency) it’s nearly double that

Not a lot you can do once they're already in space, yeah?

I bet you there was some PR person at NASA cussing them out when they heard/saw those too.

As for being faithfully archived, well we already have enough moon landing conspiracists without giving them more "evidence" of stuff being hidden during space missions.

The Apollo 10 transcripts are an absolute gem.

During lunar orbit, they discovered a rogue poop floating in the cabin [1]:

> Stafford: Who did it? (Laughter)

> Cernan: Where did that come from?

> Stafford: Give me a napkin quick, there's a turd floating through the air.

> Young: I didn't do it. It ain't one of mine.

> Cernan: I don't think it's one of mine.

> Stafford: Mine was a little more sticky than that. Throw that away.

> Young: God almighty.

> Stafford: What do you see?

> Young: Nothing, that's enough for me.

> Cernan: Yes.

> Young: Nice going there.

> Cernan: No more turds are going to fit in there.

> Stafford: Is that waste compartment full?

> Young: No, hell; there's nothing in there.

> Cernan: It goes all the way down to the...

> Cernan: Hell, when I got in there, I had to stick my hand in there and [garble] - He put it in the bag, didn't he? You guys been trying to stick it through there with your fingers?

A few more choice quotes [2]:

> Stafford: [Garble] about that ascent stage. You know that? [Garble] son of a bitch [garble] screwed, you know? But that son of a bitch - John?

> Young: [Garble] burn [garble] God. What the hell is this shit? What? What is that crap those things [garble]? [Garble] putting my [garble].

> Young: Oh, what a life, being a spaceman. Wish I could have been a professor or something.

John Young was also the star of another great moment in NASA history, when he smuggled a corned beef sandwich onboard Gemini III [3]:

> Grissom: What is that?

> Young: Corn beef sandwich

> Grissom: Where did that come from?

> Young: I brought it with me. Let's see how it tastes. Smells, doesn't it?

> Grissom: Yes, it's breaking up. I'm going to stick it in my pocket.

> Young: Is it? It was a thought, anyway.

> Grissom: Yep

> Young: Not a very good one.

> Grissom: Pretty good, though, if it would just hold together.

[1] https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap10fj/as10-day6-pt28.html

[2] https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap10fj/as10-day6-pt27.html

[3] https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist... (page 45)

Oh my God I'm crying! I had no idea these even existed, thanks for the reading material.

>Astronauts are, for better or worse, the public face and PR of NASA, which is a an agency subject to social and political winds of the times,

And having someone with the demeanor of Cardi B on the team would be bad for their PR mission how?

Because they've always marketed astronauts as paragons of virtue and skill, and something that any parent would be happy to have their child strive for. As soon as any one of them behaves in a way that any of those parents may disagree with, they're dirtying that public image in the eyes of some.

NASA is obviously acutely aware of how precarious their funding often is, so walks a fine line in an attempt to make the only critique against them purely budgetary and not political. Like it or not, showing too much personality allows one side or the other to start positioning you as a piece for or against their agenda (and of course the other side will take the opposite stance), making it a political issue even if it's ridiculous to think of it as so.

>attempt to make the only critique against them purely budgetary and not political.they're dirtying that public image in the eyes of some.

Yet they drew plenty of non-budgetary criticism for rescinding her internship, so it doesn't seem like that worked out for them.

>Astronauts are, for better or worse, the public face and PR of NASA

She was selected for a student internship, not for training in the astronaut corps

It's all related, and just a matter of magnitude. NASA is very specific about how they want their employees representing themselves when it reflects on the agency.

I'm not saying it's justified, but I don't doubt they're overly cautious by nature and if they have a chance to remove a risk prior to any real investment, they're more likely to take that route.

It’s not really different than other companies outside of astronauts and some people working in, say, educational outreach. For the vast number of employees, there’s no sort of restrictions or even discussions about what’s said outside of the legal concerns (e.g., using NASA titles to convey a position of agency, Hatch act, etc.)

The real mistake here is was made by a potential intern who was not yet hired. It’s like making a mistake on probation, you likely have very little recourse. It’s completely different for regular civilian employees

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