Parenting & Family Quote by Story Musgrave

Musgrave is quietly rejecting the astronaut-as-steely-technocrat stereotype and replacing it with something more radical: the idea that competence at the edge of space begins with humility on the ground. When he says he has a great relationship with animals and children, he’s not bragging about being likable; he’s naming two kinds of beings who don’t respond to credentials. You can’t impress a dog with a mission patch. You can’t persuade a child with résumé language. They force a different mode of attention: patient, observant, embodied.

“I get to their level” sounds simple, but it’s a discipline. In an environment where pride and hierarchy can kill you, “getting to their level” reads like a safety philosophy. The best astronauts are obsessive listeners: to instruments, to crewmates, to tiny changes in routine that signal a bigger problem. Children and animals train that same muscle because they communicate in signals you only catch if you stop performing expertise.

The second line sharpens the subtext: he’s describing perspective as a technology. “The way a child looks at the world” isn’t innocence; it’s unfiltered perception, a bias toward curiosity over explanation. In spaceflight culture, that mindset matters. Every procedure is written, but every situation isn’t. Musgrave’s long career (and reputation as a wide-ranging polymath) makes this feel less like sentiment and more like a method for staying mentally flexible under extreme constraints.

It’s also a cultural counterpoint to the macho mythology of exploration. Instead of conquest, he’s arguing for translation: meet the world where it is, not where your status says it should be.