Steely-eyed missile man: Apollo 13

Steely-eyed missile man:
US, slang when an astronaut or engineer who quickly devises an ingenious solution to a tough problem while under extreme pressure.

THE FIRST: John W. Aaron (born 1943)

When Apollo 12 launched on November 14, 1969, Aaron was on shift. Thirty-six seconds after liftoff, the spacecraft was struck by lightning, causing a power surge. Instruments began to malfunction and telemetry data became garbled. The flight director, Gerry Griffin, expected that he would have to abort the mission. However, Aaron realized that he had previously seen this odd pattern of telemetry.

Aaron surmised that this setting would also return the Apollo 12 telemetry to normal. When he made the recommendation to the Flight Director, "Flight, try SCE to Aux", most of his mission control colleagues had no idea what he was talking about. Both the flight director and the CAPCOM Gerald P. Carr asked him to repeat the recommendation. Aaron repeated himself and Carr responded "What the hell's that?" Yet he relayed the order to the crew: "Apollo 12, Houston. Try SCE to auxiliary." Fortunately Alan Bean was familiar with the location of the SCE switch inside the capsule, and flipped it to aux. Telemetry was immediately restored, allowing the mission to continue. This earned Aaron the lasting respect of his colleagues, who declared that he was "a steely-eyed missile man".

A explanation of the actual event:
What Does "Set SCE To AUX" Mean.

[Octolicia]

I love the story behind that title. It showed that when you have the definite answer, you have to fight for it. :)

[heimerblaster]

Steely-eyed missile man naturally implies fearless in the face of a adverse problem. A missile man (astronaut) of old sat on top of a potential bomb ( a rocket) and so had to face his fear of death while piloting a rocket.

[AdAstraCan]

I got called that today by a colleague and wound up here by googling it.

[mooneyesk]

John Aaron is in the movie(well, the character is). Aaron is the one who tells the engineers, and more importantly Gene Krantz, that the astronauts have to shut down everything in the craft or they'll run down the batteries. He's also the one that, in reality, found the sequence that would allow the entire system to power up again, the work that Gary Sinise, in the role of Ken Mattingly, does in the movie.

So, not only is John Aaron a steely-eyed missile man....he's a steely-eyed missile man twice over, AT LEAST!