Shuttle Commander

I work with some interesting people. One of them will be retiring next week. He joined us about thirteen years ago, from NASA. He was a Space Shuttle commander with three missions to his credit. A genuinely nice guy, he never played the "astronaut card." One had to ask him a direct question to get him to talk about his experiences. Enough people asked that he agreed to bring in his slides and give those that wished to attend, a fascinating briefing on his career at NASA. He began his discussion with his selection as an Astronaut Candidate, dubbed "Ass Cans". There may be some life lessons from his experiences, like:

The Ass Cans that thought they were shoo-ins, weren't. The ones who were just glad to have made it this far, made it farther.

"Count backwards from 100 by 7's." (The trick; subtract 10, add 3.)
A very handy tip, that.

Of numerous personal photo's he took, several were of the damage to the biosphere from pollution and habitat destruction.
Astronauts may be environmentalists at heart.