I Spoke to Joe K. Once
I sat next to Joe K. at a dinner once upon a time and asked him if he was concerned about risking his life. I'm sure he had gotten this question numerous times before, but he still answered amiably. He said that he was an Air Force engineer at the time and all the folks working on that project spent a load of time mathematically analyzing the task (i.e., slide rules). In his mind he had no doubt that the experiment would be successful otherwise he would not have done it! I hope this 'new guy' is approaching it from the test pilot / engineer perspective and not the "daredevil" perspective!