A consequence of both working with genuine rocket scientists and having an office next to the coffee machine is that I occasionally overhear little tidbits of interesting conversations. The other week, I started noting certain excerpts of conversations on my whiteboard, and I just got enough to list a few:

• "The problem with using a nuclear bomb to propel a rocket is..."
• "Now I ask you, what kind of a person takes a fuselage designed for a static structure and uses it to break the low altitude speed record?"
• "I use inertial coordinates myself, but it's a matter of taste."
• "The reason why I'm guessing this book was written by a German is because it was written in such a systematic manner."
• "I'm just not really a bomb expert, so I don't know"
• "Sometimes I think I feel out of place because I have a World War 2 mind even though I was born after the war ended."
• "People use to believe they could do things. Now, everything is too hard."