Randy Cassingham's Blog

I personally assign very great value to "job satisfaction". I mean, I'm a space nerd -- I grew up watching the astronauts skipping on the moon -- and managed to get onto the engineering staff of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and spent 10 years there before I quit to devote full time to This is True. If you have to work somewhere, it was an awfully interesting place to do it! But I quit that job to do True. That's how much I love my current job.

One of JPL's most successful projects was the two awesome Voyager spacecraft that did the "Grand Tour" of the outer giant planets; I was there for some of the encounters, like when Voyager II flew by Neptune. One of my colleagues there, Don, spent a good part of his career on that project. I'd be hard pressed to nominate one comment as my "favorite" from all the many incredible compliments I've received over the years, but this one is up there pretty high. Don wrote: "You give rocket scientists a good name. See, we do have a sense of humor. Thanks!"

Speaking of rocket science, this makes me feel so above the median. John in New York sends what he calls his "unsolicited expression of approval": "Mr. Cassingham, 'This is True' cheers me up greatly. In the bell-curve of my Internet experience, it brings the ratio of dross v content to unity. I look forward to it each week."