steely-eyed missile man

English

Etymology

American circa 1960s, as found in biographies about NASA astronauts and flight controllers. A complimentary term, apparently first applied to flight controller John Aaron[1] due to his resolution of an electrical system failure during the launch of the Apollo 12 mission (1969).[2] The 1995 film Apollo 13 depicts an episode in which Aaron and colleague Ken Mattingly performed another improvisational engineering feat in 1970 for the Apollo 13 mission.

Pronunciation
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Noun

steely-eyed missile man (plural steely-eyed missile men)

  1. (US, slang) An astronaut or engineer who quickly devises an ingenious solution to a tough problem while under extreme pressure.

References
  1. 1994, Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger, Lost Moon, Houghton-Mifflin, page 157,
    There weren't many steely-eyed missile men in the NASA family. Von Braun was certainly one, Kraft was certainly one, Kranz was probably one too. John Aaron, a twenty-seven-year-old wunderkind from Oklahoma, had recently become one as well.
  2. 2008, “SCE to AUX” (extract from the 2003 History Channel documentary Failure Is Not An Option), YouTube.
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