Irreplaceable

I have always argued that no person is truly irreplaceable. I still believe that to be the case. However, my colleague and friend Rodger Doxsey came probably as close as anyone ever could to being irreplaceable. I know of no one who had a deeper and more thorough understanding of the workings of the Hubble Space Telescope than Rodger. Rodger passed away on October 13, 2009, at the age of 62.
Usually when we retire a computer, we make sure that all the information on it is stored elsewhere. Unfortunately we cannot do the same with the human brain.
For the past two decades, Rodger was driven by one passion – the desire to make the Hubble Space Telescope the most productive scientific instrument ever.
Here is a description by another Hubble pioneer, John Bahcall, of the birth of the “Hubble Space Telescope Snapshot Program,” a wonderful example of one of Rodger’s many brainchildren:
“The Snapshot program originated in a lunchtime conversation between Rodger Doxsey and myself in the STScI cafeteria sometime in the spring of 1989. We were both late to lunch and probably were the only people in the cafeteria. The principal topic of conversation was the expected ...