> That being said, I imagine it would be very hard to be a junior employee in such an environment. My father was a senior admin in the vendor that made the mir

> That being said, I imagine it would be very hard to be a junior employee in such an environment. My father was a senior admin in the vendor that made the mirror, so I had summer jobs working on Hubble-adjacent projects. One summer my cubicle was next to the cubicle of a new engineer who worked on it. They ground the mirror in one facility and then trucked it to another one, many miles away, for silvering. This new engineer was tasked with drawing up the protocol for loading it on the truck (it was driven down in the early morning on a Sunday to reduce problems with traffic). He finishes the document draft and calls down the senior engineer for a look-over. They are discussing the part where the cranes (kind-of like fork lifts) lift the mirror. There are three cranes, and three places built into the mirror where they hook on. "How do you know the cranes will take the load?" "Here are the manufacturer's specifications, saying that each will take more than half the total weight. There are three cranes, so there is sufficient capacity even if one crane fails." "How do you know the crane will take the specified weight?" "They were vendor certified last week; I was there." "That's not enough. The night before, you and another engineer will personally go down there and personally load the specified weight on each crane. Then you will each sign a paper. The mirror will not move without that paper, containing both your personal names." Made a big impression on me.