> I did get to be present and watch the telemetry stream cut out as Cassini (purposely) crashed into the Saturnian atmosphere and was obliterated. Lots of people had spent two decades of their lives with that spacecraft. Many cheered and many cried.

I remember this well, I saw the footage of the footage they shot during the event on the lawn at CalTech as it happened in a presentation I attended with one of the members of the program at CU Boulder a few days/weeks after the 'end of mission.'

It looked incredibly emotive, did you decide to leave JPL for private Industry?

I can't imagine you wanted to stay in the public sector (NASA) if that is how you felt about it; I say that despite having conflicting views from two who worked at the AIMS program: Josiah Zayner (Biohacker) was disgruntled, whereas Shannon Rupert (Director of MDRS) has continued her work with both Mars Society and NASA.