"...our greatest achievements are the result of teamwork ..."

I feel compelled to object to "loose talk".

If the greatest achievements are large engineering projects, of course, teamwork is more than essential. To design and produce a large rocket, an airliner or a GW power generator takes huge well lead teams. Do I need to point the obvious: thousand people produce more than an individual.

Socrates converted philosophy from the study of nature to the study of human life. The list of such innovators or discoverers we remember is fairly long. We "remember" Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Verdi (just to name my favorite artists).

What is a great achievement? Do we remember the great teams from a couple of centuries or a couple of millennia ago? We are lucky if we remember their leaders.

In my opinion, the "greatest" achievements are outstanding contributions of individuals.

So, please, define your terms, Mr. Elachi, before you spew bromides.

I voted you up even though I disagree with you. I think that the 'hostile male environment' falls on the usual Bell-shaped curve: some of the complaints by women are totally spurious, most workplaces have some small covert or overt glass ceilings left, and a few are hostile to women to a notable extent.

I would rather have direct disagreement than PC talk, though, so you get a point for that.

Jan, a woman

some bodies last way too short a time to do justice for the people who inhabit them. -- j

What a great loss. She started at NASA the same time as my son did. Apparently, to know her was to love her.

thanks

video's entry was down to 'zero', I knew I couldn't vote on mine. I suspect we have one or more gremlins as to the down voting. I am sorry my comments took this post so far off task. They really were meant to honor someone I had met within my working environment (Not at NASA, but at a Plasma Symposium) and was impressed with.

That's a very broad generalization and palpably weak. Plenty of men hate women, plenty of men envy and resent anyone who does better work than they do, whether male or female, and plenty of women enjoy celebrating the work of other women. I saw firsthand that the women who survived in my field [law] had no family life or a family life that was totally run by live-in help and they worked longer and harder than their peers. If you've never been inside a hostile work environment, count your lucky stars. Some of them are driven by jerks at the top, some of them by jerks just one rung above you, but they are miserable. You can't always spot them from the outside and particularly in a field that frowns on job-hopping it can be difficult to leave without taking a massive hit to the wallet and the career arc.

That's true, my wife has been an engineer for almost 20 years, not many female co-workers, and the men tend to be the geeks that lacked any social skills in their youth, and still haven't found any.

One of them apparently had a crush on her and showed up at hour house (we live in the mountains above Sacramento) "because he was in the neighborhood" at about 9 pm on Valentine's Day one year... Not sure what he was hoping for...

Creep was so weird he was pulling his hair out in clumps by the fistful while I stared at his nerdy ass.

Then he left.

you can't click up your own comments. what's frustrating is an otherwise separate worthy discussion about feminism gone wild has insinuated itself into this discussion about an accomplished engineer and scientist. In here, it just seems strange that people would not acknowledge simple facts. It's made clear in AS, for example, that Dagny was operating in a "man's world" and that she suceeded. Here, the article focuses on her accomplishments only. You brought up the work environment at NASA and I point out that I'm just now seeing this-why wasn't there more in social media about her untimely death. But I often notice this in the field of science and engineering. People do not have a logical definition of hero. I don't appreciate cowards who silently down vote.

Not me. See my comment on; Voting on the Gulch? I confess to being tempted, but my skin is a lot thicker than that. Relax, take a deep breath and I will up click the comment to bring it back to one

Only the good die young... One can only imagine the discoveries she might have achieved or aided in had she lived longer. Sad.

I have no idea who down voted this comment but I'm getting teed-off!

don 't think one uses affirmative action to receive a doctorate in plasma physics. I 'm not surr why you felt the need to trash my post, but you 're warned. Any more unsubstantiated comments about Ms. Alexander and I will hide your comments.

I only met her one brief time, but after talking to her for three minutes I knew what the term "brilliance" meant. I am truly sorry for you that you never had the privilege.

Sorry you don't like my comment but I worked in that environment, and I am a man and watched what went on. Some of it was pretty pathetic.

thanks, Brett. will do.

Thanks for the post and news here, khalling. Sad she died so young.
If you want to encourage more people to pursue a STEM career without relying on PC arguments (appealing to reason and self-interest and self-esteem instead), I encourage and appreciate you steering people to my book, How To Be a Rocket Scientist:
http://howtobearocketscientist.com
It is true we need more "interesting" people in technical fields, because interesting problems are solved by interesting people!

Healthcare system failed her (and thousands of other cancer victims.)

So young, that's a shame. But it looks like she did some fantastic work.

Nowhere does it state in the article anything about feminism. Do you work at NASA? I'm just interested in why you are reacting so strongly to I's statement.

I picked up on that. But it is a small sentence in what otherwise celebrates an accomplished scientist.

Oh, stop the bullshit with the "hostile male environment". You don't know what you're talking about. The only environments hostile to women are women-controlled environments. Men love women, women hate women. Feminists hate everyone.

The obligatory SJW "diversity" thing : "black woman in a field dominated by white men".
If that's her only achievement worthy of consideration, besides some nebulous "social" function...
Yeah. Maybe, oh just maybe, she had her carrier as some token for "affirmative action"...

You probably figured out I am not a woman, but I worked with a few (and they were very few) women in the Engineering ranks. They took a lot of flack from children that will never grow up. Oddly enough women took the worst flack from the other women.

wow. interesting, ibecame