Word: swigert
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...taken aback by Jack Swigert's opinion: "The very things that qualified the men to go to the moon ... disqualified them to describe their journey with any lyricism." Perhaps Swigert has never heard of Antoine de St. Exupéry, the French aviator, explorer and writer, whose internationally loved fictional creation, the Little Prince is from the planet B612. Somehow I believe St. Exupéry would have fulfilled NASA's requirement "for pilots who were made of tough physical stuff" in spite of his many other talents. NASA should broaden its scope. Jeanette F. Huber, KINSALE, IRELAND...
Hanks isn't the first to discover that there's a difference between rapture and rigor. The late Jack Swigert, command-module pilot of Apollo 13, said that the very thing that qualified astronauts to fly to the moon--a certain engineer's detachment from the outrageousness of the undertaking--disqualified them to speak about it terribly lyrically. Hanks, with lyricism to burn, decided to make the most of his astronomical talents...