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I Know That Guy on the Space Station!
Twenty-one
years ago, Woody Hoburg was on a team in the American Rocketry Challenge and was an enthusiastic rocket guy. I helped him put together the ground support equipment for the hybrid rocket motors in this picture.
This week, he rode a Falcon 9 to the ISS.
That makes two astronauts I know from the hobby rocketry world. Jay Apt, who flew on three Shuttle flights, is an older friend, from college days in the Seventies.
That is so cool and it must be very gratifying that you helped that young man achieve the stars! Shows the importance of play.
Absolutely. Occasionally I encounter someone who sneers at the hobby business. I love to have ready examples like this. More, I believe that hobbies keep people sane by giving them something to be proud of.
Very cool. I only have friends who have had their experiments performed on the space station, never any actual astronauts.
Many years ago I was interviewed on a local talk radio program after one of my books came out. A caller asked me if I didn’t sometimes feel like I was wasting my talent and career working in a business selling things to people (she said “men…” probably some issues there) who were cases of arrested development, i.e. men playing with toys.
I responded, “We live in a world where people often have to work in jobs that they don’t take much pride in, to make a living. But the guy working on the GM assembly line is building a fully-rigged model of the Bounty or an incredible model railroad layout in his basement. They have something they can point to and say, “I’m special: I do this.” The last team that the USA sent to the international model airplane championships was a man who owns an auto body shop in Kansas, a teacher from St. Louis, and a building superintendent (janitor) from Brooklyn. They qualified for the USA team with incredibly detailed flying model airplanes. These are not childish men. They are men who haven’t forgotten how to play.”
I nominate this for comment of the year! I simply love discovering these hidden and unexpected talents in both men and women.
Yes, and to delve deeply into the way things work.