steely-eyed missile man

Meanings

1. An astronaut or engineer who quickly comes up with a solution to a difficult problem while under extreme pressure.

Etymology

From steely-eyed (“having a hard, strong, and determined mentality or mindset”) + missile + man. Probably popularized by the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, by American astronaut Jim Lovell (1928–2025) and American author and journalist Jeffrey Kluger (born 1954), as well as the 1995 film, Apollo 13, based on the book. The film has capsule communicator 1 “Andy” (portrayed by Brett Cullen) tell a technician (Walter von Huene), whose team had devised a solution to a problem with the spacecraft's carbon dioxide filters, “You, sir, are a steely-eyed missile man.” The book implies that the term had been in use at least since the early years of NASA, which was established in 1958: see the quotation.