Kudos to John Weidner, for pointing out one of my chronic kvetches.

Yes, Virginia, there is no such thing as a rocket scientist. I know because I used to be one (if that makes any sense). Rockets are designed by engineers, not by scientists.

Just to pick nits, it seems to me that a person with a Ph.D. in Chemistry or Physics could certainly be a rocket scientist (if they, for example, studied the properties of rocket fuel combustion, or the aerodynamics of flight through the vertical atmospheric gradient. I am sure that there are other interesting facets of rocketry as well that I don't know about. Your statement is a bit syllogistic, as is Wiedner's. Of course a rocket scientist wouldn't DESIGN rockets, engineers DESIGN things (I am married to one, so I know). I realize that this is all early morning nitpicking with no point whatsoever, but what the hell, eh? You guys started it!

>Just to pick nits, it seems to me that a person with a Ph.D. in

>Chemistry or Physics could certainly be a rocket scientist

>(if they, for example, studied the properties of rocket fuel

>combustion, or the aerodynamics of flight through the vertical

>atmospheric gradient.

That's not really what most people think of as "rocket" science--it's just science. Combustion has a broad range of applicability, as does aerodynamics. Of course there are fluid-mechanics scientists, but they're not "rocket scientists" in the popular sense.

It's an important distinction to me for the same reason that I ranted a few days ago about the difference between doing science and memorizing facts. When people say "rocket science," it's another example of a vast public misunderstanding of what science is and is not.

Most people just say rocket scientist to mean a smart person (i.e. I'm no rocket scientist, but...). As an aside, all my college friends are engineers, and I am a biologist, so they all used to call me "germ scientist" when I called them rocket scientist. Of course they are all now computer programmers, anyway!