The Dumbest Acronym. Ever.

So, imagine it's the Sixties. You're NASA. You want to get to space, but you're worried about what happens when you get there. Suppose there's Commie Reds! Guns--you got guns. Okay, now suppose there's aliens! Same diff.

But now suppose that your astronaut (Gre. astrum nautilos, "space dude") falls out. Or that the ship has an engine malfunction (Lat. "bad function")! What do you do--think fast.

Answer? You hire General Electric to build you this.

That's right, long before the current glory days of "satisfectellent" (sp?), the marketing people at GE were ahead of the game, thinking up dumb names for dumb shit. In space.