nice post...this is really a right stuff !!!

The dedication of these Marshall and Michoud employees is, of course, outstanding. However, your comment:

"To those of you sitting behind desks at NASA: think of that later today when you stop what you are doing simply because your car pool is about to leave."

is entirely uncalled for. What makes you think that the rest of us are not equally ready to deal with natural or unnatural disasters to protect the missions and the assets? How dare you question the dedication of the Agency staff and contractors? I'm not going to list the number of hurricanes, earthquakes, accidents, terrorist attacks, or budget catastrophes that we, as employees of the agency doing the most exciting work that's ever been done, have weathered and overcome.

Frankly, your derisive "inside the beltway" attitude on this topic is uncalled for, inappropriate, and frankly erodes my respect for you as an unbiased reporter.

Editor's note: Sigh, Louis, based on your email address you spent quite a lot of time working "inside the beltway" at NASA HQ and you are exactly the sort of person I was aiming this comment at. Given that I only seem to see you in the smoking area outside of HQ, I wonder how much of my tax dollars have been spent on salary devoted to subsidizing your habit ... If the shoe fits ...

Alright so when is it okay to leave work and still be patriotic? Car pools are unpatroitic... Can I leave for dinner? For a child's baseball game? Before I get divorced?

If the work is done why does it matter how I get to and from work. And if its not done, we have this nice thing called the internet that lets me work from home, not that my boss supports that new-fangled teleworking.

Editor's note: And these NASA folks at MAF don't have these pressures too? Especially when some of them lived in FEMA trailers?

Keith,
yes, I smoke, but you clearly don't know anything else about what I do or have done before I arrived at HQ. Next time you "see me" perhaps you could stop and learn something. Oh, and in an 8 hour day, I'm entitled to two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch break. It takes 3 minutes to smoke a cigarette and I smoke 10 cigarettes per day, so do the math. It's not me you're money's wasted on.

Editor's note: How long does it take to get to and from the smoking area so you can spend 3 minutes smoking that cigarette? I'll bet its more than 3 minutes - each way. Do the math. Does this time posting on NASA Watch via your non-NASA email account comprise part of one of those breaks? Just curious.

I have done rideouts like this when I worked on the Titan SLV program. I did it because it's a great exciting break from the everyday boredom of pushing paperwork. Doing a rideout is less dangerous than rockets blowing up and falling back on the pad, or collapsing during fueling, both which I have also experienced.

Dang, I wonder if I can convince my boss to let me leave 30 minutes early. I don't smoke, and I don't have "scheduled 15 minute breaks" twice a day. I guess I haven't been a lazy enough fed all these years. Maybe I should make up for lost time and simply take the rest of the year off.

I'm a Marshall employee who spent time at MAF right after Hurricane Katrina. I was sent down to New Orleans to help run the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) while the employees tried to deal with what had happened. There were a few who lived at the EOC because everything they had was destroyed. And guess what? They were still concerned for the welfare of the facility during this time. And I'm talking about Lockheed Martin as well as NASA employees.

The living conditions were indescribable to say the least. And it was during this time that Hurricane Rita came about making conditions even worse.

I got to know a few of the employees personally while there and can tell you that they are the very best of the very best. Even after talking with them face-to-face, I still don't know what it means or how it feels to lose everything you have. The concept most likely will always be foreign to me.

It sounds so cliché to talk about the human spirit. But after seeing this catastrophe in person, I now know what it means. I don't know what could happen in life to make me want every single one of these people to be on my team, but if the situation were to ever come about, yes, I'd want every single one of them on my team.

Keith is totally right on this one. We lost our way a long time ago. It's astounding how many people inside the gates are just collecting a paycheck. Chop the dead wood.

Editor's note: And these NASA folks at MAF don't have these pressures too? Especially when some of them lived in FEMA trailers?

The hurricanes are extrodinary circumstances, in which case I think many people who car pool would be willing to do the same. Car pooling is a way to commute, and shouldn't be black-balled as a lack of dedication, effort, or patroitism.

While the devastation wasn't as extensively severe in the JSC area after Ike as over at Michoud following Katrina, I should note that quite a few folks helped each other out in dealing with the cleanup (and worse) with exactly the same spirit and dedication to their work and each other as people in a community faced with challenges.

Crises are like that; they accentuate our human nature and bring out the worst in a few of us and the best in most of us.

Apparently, Louis is guilty as one of those desk-riders Keith mentioned. Otherwise, he would have seen Keith's comment as directed at others within the Agency. There certainly are enough folks like that who are just collecting a paycheck. But I don't see myself as one of those, so I didn't take offense.