I was the most emotional of the flight directors. Space really got me all honked up.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the strong emotions and personal connection that come with overseeing space missions.
Gene Kranz, a flight director during NASA's space missions, reflects on his deep emotional investment in the challenges and triumphs of space exploration. His admission of being 'honked up' illustrates the profound impact that the responsibilities and successes of space missions had on him, highlighting the human element behind the technical achievements in aerospace.
In practice
In a speech about teamwork during a project launch.
There's an awful lot of future out there, and what you got to do, is you go to out and grab it, wrestle it to the ground, accept the challenges, and then decide. You've got the skills. You've got the knowledge. You've got the love, and you're capable of moving forward and making a great life yourself.
I did everything by the numbers. I had checklists upon checklists. If I wasn't ahead of everybody on my team, I didn't feel I was doing my job.
No way can you ever, ever, ever evidence confusion, concern, lack of understanding. You have to be in charge. You are the guy. You have to be cooler than cool, smarter than smart.
You can not operate in this room unless you believe that you are Superman, and whatever happens, you're capable of solving the problem.
I just felt that space was the next thing coming in aviation. It was higher, faster. It had the risk.
We've never lost an American in space, we're sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option.
The kitchen's a laboratory, and everything that happens there has to do with science. It's biology, chemistry, physics. Yes, there's history. Yes, there's artistry. Yes, to all of that. But what happened there, what actually happens to the food is all science.
The uncertainty relation does not refer to the past; if the velocity of the electron is at first known and the position then exactly measured, the position for times previous to the measurement may be calculated.
That is the logical tight-rope on which we have to walk if we wish to interpret nature.
Scientific theories tell us what is possible; myths tell us what is desirable. Both are needed to guide proper action.
Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that's already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn.
Enormous numbers of people are taken in, or at least beguiled and fascinated, by what seems to me to be unbelievable hocum, and relatively few are concerned with or thrilled by the astounding-yet true-facts of science, as put forth in the pages of, say, Scientific American.
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