Time & Perspective Quote by Duane G. Carey

Carey’s line deflates the glossy mythology of the astronaut as a born-to-fly romantic and swaps in something rarer: professional candor. “Piloting really isn’t my hobby” is a small act of rebellion against the narrative NASA sells (and the public buys), where passion is supposed to be total, lifelong, almost religious. He’s not denying competence or commitment; he’s separating identity from occupation, insisting that even the most cinematic jobs can still be, fundamentally, jobs.

The pivot - “if you’ve got to make a living” - is doing heavy cultural work. Astronauts are positioned as national icons, but Carey frames himself as a worker inside an elite labor market. That phrase smuggles in class reality: not everyone gets to choose their dream, and even the people who “made it” can feel the pinch of pragmatism. It’s also a subtle nod to risk. Piloting isn’t leisure because leisure implies control and optionality; flying for NASA is high-stakes, procedural, and accountable to mission, budget, and crew. Calling it “a great way to make a living” is wry precisely because the living has to be continuously “made” in an environment where mistakes can end it.

Context matters: Carey flew on Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-109) in 2002, in the era when shuttle flight was routine in schedule but never routine in consequence. The quote reads like a pressure release valve - humor as professionalism, understatement as a way to manage awe. It humanizes the astronaut without shrinking the achievement, and it quietly punctures the fantasy that extraordinary work must always feel like play.