Who are “your people”?

As we were gearing up for NephMadness Mealnie Hoenig mentioned that she loved working with the Nephmadness crew because they were “her people.” This resonated with me and has become my latest way of looking at the word. This particularly resonated with me when my college roommate introduced me to Public Broadcast Service.

Gene Kranz

There best song is “Go” which samples Gene Kranz dialog with his flight controllers during the Apollo 11 lunar lander landing. I love this because though I have heard the story of the Apollo mission a 100 times I had never thought of it from the perspective of the flight controllers.

This struck me as a great example of my people. While I never could imagine myself as Neil Armstrong, I could imagine me, and my ilk, being a flight controller in Houston. Which one would I be? flight SURGEON, of course.

Summary of the different flight controllers can be found here.

Transcript from the song:

Narrator (NASA Spokesman?)
This is Apollo Control 102 hours into the flight of Apollo 11.
It has grown quite quiet here at Mission Control

A few moments ago Flight Director Gene Krantz requested that everyone sitdown and get prepared for the events that were coming and he closed with the remark “Good luck to all of you.” [Ed. not quite One small step for man; one giant leap for Mankind]

12 minutes now until ignition for powered descent. Everything still looking very good at this point

Gene Krantz
Okay all flight controllers, “Go” “No go” for powered descent.

Or if you prefer, the Ed Harris version

RETRO?
      Go!
FIDO?
      Go!
GUIDANCE?
      Go!
CONTROL?
      Go!
Deltcom? [can’t quite tell, maybe INCO?]
      Go!
GNC?
      Go!
EECOM?
      Go!
SURGEON?
      Go!

CAPCOM we are go for powered descent [CAPCOM, capsule communicator, was an astronaut in Houston responsible for communicating with the mission astronauts. At the time of the landing it was Charlie Duke]

We are off to a good start.
Play it cool.

Okay all flight controllers, I’m going around the horn

RETRO?
      Go!
FIDO?
      Go!
GUIDANCE?
      Go!
CONTROL?
      Go!
Deltcom?
      Go!
GNC?
      Go!
EECOM?
      Go!
SURGEON?
      Go!