[X] My Assistant

[climber]

Coming back from Hawaii I had a one hour change in LA to get my next flight to Dules. Mind gang, I’m NOT going to tell you again that I sat near a nice girl and this sort of things.
When I get to the gate I kinda recognize somebody, then somebody else… they both were among a group of 7-8 people. I knew the first one surname’s Adam but can’t remember his first name at this time (I know he’s Steltzner by now). The second one looked a bit like Tom Rivellini the (Landing Systems Engineer)… If you’ve watched Spirit and Oppy landing, I’m sure you’ll have recognized them both. So, I went to see him:
- Are you Tom Revillini?
- No, I’m not, but I work with him!
Bingo, there was a part of the Mer EDL team!!!
- Do you know Tom?
- Well (didn’t want to tell him that I did indeed but that HE didn’t know me), not really I just recognize you because I went to Pasadena for Spirit landing with the Planetary Society, and you look like Tom. (I’d notice that already that Tom’s got a kinda sosie)
- Oh yes, I see.
- So, How everything’s going? (I was such in awe that I didn’t find a better question)
- Well, we’re working on the next one.
- ….(he sew through my eyes that I was not sure of which next one he was talking about)
- That’s MSL.
Then he turn down and said to Adam that I’ve mistaken him with Tom Rivellini and said:
- Is Tom on the same flight?
- I think so.
He was not.
At this time I had a wild thought! If Rob Manning would show I’ll say : hey MarsEngineer, I’m Climber! He didn’t show either. But they were all on MY flight. A whole EDL brunch of guys that already landed 2 rovers on Mars and were working on MSL! And nobody around knew about it! I thought of this situation for a while. You can be seated near somebody you’d really like to meet, even your personal hero, and don’t know about it.For Exemple, Neil Armstrong, Doug Jellison,
We rushed in the plane; I sat down hopping one of them will sit next to me.
I was not THAT lucky.
So, all passengers felt asleep as soon as the plane took off since it was 6 am. I took the chance later on to get to Adam and asked him if he wouldn’t mind talking with me about Mars I had a "few" questions actually . It was just bad timing, the seat belt sign went on, and then it was time to land, so I missed my chance. (sorry about that guys, I can’t tell you of anything news except that the team was off to Washington).
Anyway, I learnt ONE single thing that none of you know : they are only EDL people and they don’t even know about what type of spacecraft they land! Guess why? Because Adam was reading a magazine called: 4-Wheels.

[Stu]

...or...

"Come on, you can tell me, I won't tell anyone else, I promise... that really WAS a fossil that rover ground to bits wasn't it? And that Face, I mean, that has to be real, right? 'cos I heard this guy on the radio late one night, real scientist, saying it was built by aliens, the same ones maybe who built a huge wall right around one of Saturn's moons -

Hey, where you going, something wrong with your seat..?"